Sunshine Through the Rain

by Gilly Stewart

  ‘Has she, er, said anything?’

  ‘Anything about …?’

  Kit sighed. Maybe it wasn’t the done thing to go asking questions behind Ellen’s back, but Ellen wasn’t the communicative sort, and there were some things you just had to know. ‘I would have thought he’d want her to move back to Edinburgh.

  ‘I got the impression that he’d love her to move back, but that he wasn’t so keen on the kids.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Kit. ‘Poor Ellen.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s that bothered.’ Clare watched him consideringly now, no longer laughing. ‘She broke up with him a while back, didn’t you know?’

  ‘Did she?’ Kit couldn’t keep the smile off his face. Ellen was single? This changed everything!

  He looked down at his coffee, wanting to finish it quickly now. He had masses to do at home, and if he just happened to wander down to Craigallan after that, well …

  ‘I wondered if you were interested in her yourself,’ said Clare, still watching him.

  ‘Me? Ah, well, she’s a lovely person and …’ Kit could feel himself blushing.

  He was, literally, saved by the bell: by the little Tibetan bell that Clare had hanging by her kitchen door. A man rang it with one hand as he opened the door with the other. ‘Hiya, couldn’t resist, I just love that sound. Sorry I’m late.’ He looked vaguely familiar, but all the same Kit was surprised when Clare raised her head to kiss the newcomer on the lips.

  ‘This is Kit,’ she said, holding on to the stranger’s hand. ‘You might remember him from the ceilidh? Kit, this is Grant McConnell.’

  ‘How do you do?’ said Kit. He did remember him now. This was Angus’s music teacher, the one whose things had got smashed up in the fight. ‘Did you manage to get your van fixed up?’

  ‘Aye, it’s fine. It was just a door hinge. And amazingly the keyboard works as good as ever.’

  Kit rose. This was a good time to make his departure. ‘Nice to see you again. Clare, thanks for the coffee …’

  ‘Any time.’ Clare also stood up, leaning into the younger man, tucking an arm around his waist. Kit wondered if Ellen knew about this development. ‘And don’t forget what I said about any commissions for your new house.’ She glanced up at Grant. ‘Kit’s building a house near Craigallan, you know, where Angus Moffat lives?’

  ‘Aye, I remember. That reminds me, is young Angus OK? He’s missed a couple of lessons since the ceilidh. I wondered if he was avoiding me ’cos of all the hassle, like.’

  Clare looked at Kit. He said, ‘I think he’s fine. I’ll mention it to him, if you want.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it. I should have his phone number somewhere but I haven’t got around to looking it out.’

  Kit frowned. During all the recent troubles only Angus’s guitar and his animals had been the constants. There could well be a good reason for missing the lessons that Kit didn’t know about. But if Ellen did know about it, he was surprised she hadn’t phoned Grant to cancel.

  He wondered if he should say anything to Clare about not mentioning this visit to Ellen but decided, on balance, it was safer just to leave it.

  There was something calming about the weather today. The mist from last night’s rain lingered in the hollows of the hills and drifted like smoke here and there. The fields were a deep, rich green, and the sun rising over the eastern side of the valley flooded it slowly and completely with a golden light. It felt good to be here.

  Ellen still didn’t know if she had made the right decision in agreeing to stay, either for the children or for herself. But today it felt good, and she would have to go with that.

  Angus was still being … Angus. They had come to a tentative agreement over animals, negotiated by Kit, but he refused to talk to her about that or anything else. After his initial euphoria about staying at Craigallan, he seemed no happier than before. He must be missing his parents, she knew that, but she wished he would let her know if there was something else as well. The fight with those horrible boys was an unresolved issue in her mind. Were they still bullying him? She had no idea.

  Today Ellen had something else to think about. She had a sort of interview at the higher education college in Dumfries. It was the first job interview she had had in years and although it was supposed to be very informal she couldn’t help feeling nervous.

  After walking Monty through the sunny fields, and trying not to think how she would feel when the animals there no longer belonged to Craigallan, she put on a smart suit, and set off into town.

  This was a familiar journey now, down through the hills, past villages that were little more than clusters of cottages, and then the scattering of newer bungalows as you drew nearer to civilisation. The trees were fully in leaf and the birds fluttered in the hedgerows. It was a pleasant thirty-minute drive at this time of day and this time of year. What would it be like in winter, when time was short and roads treacherous? Ellen remembered Jess saying that was the worst part of living out at Craigallan, the driving into town for her nursing shifts. But there wasn’t any work nearer at hand, so it had to be done.

  Ellen had obtained this interview through her former head of department in Edinburgh. Shirley had been at college with one of the lecturers in Dumfries, and in the small world that was higher education in Scotland still bumped in to him at conferences and seminars. She had put in a good word for Ellen, and although she had been told there were ‘no vacancies as such, just now’ she had been invited in for a chat.

  It wasn’t Shirley’s friend who was to interview Ellen, but one of the senior lecturers. He introduced himself as Mark Gillespie and shook Ellen’s hand at length before ushering her into a small, institutional office. It could have been her own room in Edinburgh, with the books along the walls and piles of papers to be marked, except that here the view was out across farmland to the Southern Uplands.

  ‘Now, Miss Taylor, or may I call you Ellen? I hear that you are looking for employment? You come very highly recommended from your previous employer, but as you know funding is tight and I’m not sure we have anything we can offer you right at this moment.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Ellen. ‘It’s good of you to see me. I just wanted to let you know that I’m here, so that if you have an opening in future, you know you can call on me.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent.’ The man was in his early forties, casually dressed as befitted a college lecturer. Now that he had got the awkward matter of telling Ellen there was no work out of the way, he settled down to the interview. He asked her a little about her CV, chatted about shared acquaintances in the academic world, queried her areas of special interest. His questions were pertinent, his comments amusing, and he made it clear he was impressed with her experience. Ellen wondered why it was she didn’t like him. Perhaps it was the way he threw himself back in his seat, arms raised above his head, as though putting that long, athletic body on display for her. Or the fact that he made just a little too much eye contact.

  ‘Of course, we close for the summer in a few weeks’ time,’ he said. ‘We’re still finalising the courses for next year, dependant on student numbers. I take it you wouldn’t have a problem with part-time work? And evening courses are very popular, we have a lot of mature students who combine studying with work.’

  ‘Part-time work would suit me best,’ said Ellen. He knew enough of her situation to realise that, surely? ‘But I’m afraid that evenings would be difficult. The children are still young.’

  ‘Hmm, mm,’ he said non-committally. ‘Well, we’ll have to see what comes up. How about I have a chat with Personnel about keeping your details on file and if anything suitable arises, I’ll get back in touch?’

  ‘That would be fine,’ said Ellen. She didn’t want him to think that she was desperate.

  ‘Well, why don’t we go and have a coffee in the canteen and you can tell me how you’re settling in to life in rural Dumfriesshire?’ He ushered her down the stairs, walking a little too close. ‘Must be quite a change from th
e hustle and bustle of Edinburgh. Have you been out in Dumfries much? Perhaps I could show you around the town one evening?’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ said Ellen politely. ‘But as I said, evenings are difficult.’

  He smiled. ‘I’m sure you could find a babysitter if you tried. You don’t want to shut yourself away in the sticks, do you?’

  It felt very odd to have someone asking her out. It was so long since anyone had done that she could hardly remember it. She and Richard had been a couple for years. Strange how she hardly missed him. Not nearly as much as she missed Jess. Poor, lovely Jess. In these last few months men and relationships had been the last thing on her mind. Now here was someone, reasonably good-looking, who looked at her not as the poor aunt left with those orphan children, but as a woman, herself.

  And she had no interest in him at all. Eventually, after she turned down his invitations a couple more times, he seemed to get the message.

  For some reason, as Ellen drove back out to Craigallan, she remembered how Devon had dragooned Kit into taking her as his partner to the ceilidh, angled after an invite to his house. She had seen no sign of the girl since, which made her smile.

  ‘Right,’ said Ellen as the children trailed in for their evening meal. ‘Time we had another talk.’ The interview at the college might not have produced a job, but it had perked her up in a way she hadn’t expected.

  Angus immediately looked as though he wanted to leave the room. His pale hair was now a soft halo around the narrow head. His head drooped, but at least he stayed.

  Ellen placed a Lancashire hotpot in the middle of the table with a pan of broccoli beside it, and began to dish out.

  ‘I don’t want much,’ said Angus. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘It’s good for you,’ said Ellen, putting a reasonable portion before him. She knew he was saying that because he wanted to leave the room.

  When they had all been served she took her own place and, with a fortifying sip from her glass of water, began. ‘Right. We’ve agreed we’re going to stay here, I mean in this area. But I want to be sure you definitely want to stay in this house. It’s a fair way from town, there are no neighbours very nearby, do you really want to live here?’

  ‘Of course we do,’ said Angus quickly.

  ‘Let everyone speak for themselves. An … Sam, you want to stay at Craigallan, yes? Now, Callum, what about you?’

  Ellen smiled encouragingly at her second nephew, who looked uncomfortable to be the centre of attention. ‘’S fine here.’

  ‘OK, but what would you want, if you had the choice? Here, or Kinmuir village, or Dunmuir itself? I’m not suggesting we sell Craigallan, but we could rent it out, just as we are doing with the fields.’

  Callum glanced nervously at his brother and Ellen wondered if having a ‘family’ discussion had been the right thing to do. The younger two were bound to be influenced by what Angus said. She said gently, ‘Think about it, Cal. And now, Lucy, what about you?’

  ‘I want to live with you,’ said Lucy. ‘Where are you going to live?’

  Ellen didn’t think she had a heart that could melt, but it seemed she did. She felt tears rise to her eyes. ‘We’ll all live together, where ever we are. Don’t worry about that, sweetheart.’

  ‘Oh. Good. I’d like to stay at Craigallan, then, but can we move it closer to Grace’s house?’

  ‘We can’t leave Craigallan. You said I could keep Melanie and the sheep. You said …’ Angus hadn’t touched his food. He was breathing hard, building himself up to a full-blown argument.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said, and I keep my word.’ Ellen raised her voice too, which made him pause. ‘But we don’t have to have them right on our doorstep, do we? We could live in the village but keep a few acres out here. I’m just considering the options, Angus. Remember, you said I should discuss things with you more.’

  Angus’s lip curled.

  ‘Craigallan’s our house,’ said Callum slowly. ‘I think I’d like to stay here.’

  ‘Even with all the walking back and forth to the village?’

  ‘Well. It would be easier if I had a better bike,’ he said, eyeing her hopefully. It was the first sign of natural cunning that Ellen had seen in her easy-going nephew, and she had to smile.

  ‘We’ll see. So, it’s unanimous for Craigallan, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Angus fiercely. ‘Of course.’

  ‘What about you?’ said Lucy. ‘Don’t you have a say?’

  Ellen was amazed. Perhaps she should talk to the children more. ‘I’m quite happy to stay here,’ she said.

  ‘So that’s all right then,’ said Angus, starting to fork food into his mouth at his normal breakneck speed.

  ‘That’s just the beginning,’ said Ellen, and took another deep breath. ‘If we’re going to stay here, we should think about what we want to do with the house.’

  Angus put his fork down again. ‘The house is all right.’

  ‘What would we do?’ said Callum.

  ‘Well, we could do some redecoration.’

  ‘Can I paint my bedroom pink?’ said Lucy.

  ‘It’s a possibility. But what we need to think about is,’ another even deeper breath, ‘is your parents’ room. We can’t leave it shut up like it is for ever.’

  Lucy and Callum looked at her in surprise. ‘You’re not having it,’ said Angus.

  Ellen clamped down on her irritation. She said firmly, ‘We’ll talk about who will have the room later. What we need to do first is sort out what’s in there. You might want to keep some of the things, some of them can go. I can sort out things on my own if you want, or we can all do it together. What do you think?’

  Lucy swallowed and moved fractionally closer to Ellen. Callum looked blank.

  ‘We’ll do it together,’ said Angus gruffly. Ellen had the feeling he would rather have excluded her, but didn’t dare.

  It was a relief to have got this far. ‘Right, why don’t we tackle it tomorrow morning? It’s Saturday, no school. How about it?’

  ‘I was going to go to Simon’s,’ said Angus.

  ‘OK, well, we can do it in the afternoon.’

  ‘I’ve got a school football match in the afternoon,’ said Callum.

  ‘We’ll do it in the morning. I’ll tell Simon I can’t go.’

  ‘Sunday would be soon enough,’ said Ellen. She didn’t want to scupper any plans he had to meet up with Simon Scott. ‘And in the meantime, we need to talk about what we should do with your mum and dad’s room once we’ve sorted things out. Would one of you want to move in there?’

  She waited. Three pairs of eyes turned to her but no one spoke.

  ‘We don’t have to decide now,’ she said. She was going too fast. ‘You can think about it.’

  ‘Angus is the oldest,’ said Lucy.

  Angus narrowed his eyes at Ellen. ‘You want it, don’t you? You want to move in there.’

  Ellen sighed. She really, really did not want to move into her dead sister’s room. But she couldn’t say that to him and even if she did he probably wouldn’t believe her.

  ‘I think one of you children should have it. You two boys could even share, it’s big enough. But we’ll talk about it again after Sunday, OK?’

  On Saturday evening, as bedtime approached, Lucy crept up to her aunt and tapped her arm. ‘Auntie Ellen,’ she whispered. ‘Can I sleep in Mummy and Daddy’s bed tonight? P-please? Just this one time. I know you said I shouldn’t but – please?’

  All the children had wanted their parents’ bed in those first dark days after their loss. It had been a struggle to get them back to the normality of their own rooms.

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Let her, why not?’ said Angus. ‘It’s the last chance she’s going to have.’

  That evening he went in and sat with Lucy after Ellen had read her story. She didn’t hear the sound of voices. Eventually, when he came out, he went to the bathroom and spent a long time in there before retreating to
his own room. She guessed they had both been crying.

  Callum said nothing, but watched movies on television until he was so sleepy she had to guide him up the stairs.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kit had done the sensible thing and arranged for extra carers to go in and help his mother. She wasn’t as mobile as she used to be and everything was an effort, getting herself up and about, preparing meals, seeing to the house.

  He was pretty sure the time had come for her to think about moving into a care home, but he had no idea how to broach the idea with her.

  So he was completely flummoxed when she said, during one of their occasional Saturday runs out in the car, ‘You know, I wouldn’t mind going to call in on my friend Nora. She’s in Westerwood House, I think that’s what it’s called. Do you know it?’

  ‘Westerwood House?’ This was one of the two local care homes he had found information on. And then done nothing about. ‘Yes, I know where it is. Shall we head out in that direction, pop in and see if she’s free to see us?’ he remembered from the literature that visitors were welcome.

  ‘Would you mind, dear?’ His mum beamed at him, seeming delighted. Why hadn’t he thought of this himself? How lonely she must be at home, with only the carers and him going in and out. She rarely got to see any of her friends, because both she and they were so immobile.

  The visit was quite a success! Mum and Nora had a great chat, and Kit had the opportunity when he left them alone for a while to speak to the manager. She was a woman in her late fifties, smartly dressed but homely in her manner. She said they didn’t have any vacancies. However, if Kit’s mother wanted to come back for a proper visit and was interested in moving in, she could go on the waiting list.

  He didn’t have the nerve to sound Mum out about this straight away, but he felt more hopeful than he had in a while. She had seemed to enjoy her visit. And the whole place had a really pleasant atmosphere, not at all institutionalised. He’d give her the chance to bring it up, but if she didn’t then he would suggest a visit himself. Definitely, he would.