Meanwhile, Brandi curled up on a sofa by the fire watching Sherry like a tigress. Sherry had put on lipstick, eye shadow, and blusher, and while she wasn’t picture-book gorgeous, she was chic, stunning in her own way, and she and Jim were obviously having a great old time making music together.
Anybody could see that Brandi was not pleased, but it was Kenny who finally got enough. He got up, stalked over to Jim with a frown and announced, “I’ll thank you to remember that Sherry is my wife.”
Jim looked up as if Kenny were nothing but a gnat. “Och, aye,” he said mildly.
Kenny stomped off with a cloud on his face. I later saw him and Laura talking earnestly in a booth in the bar. Dorothy and Joyce sat at another booth, but they didn’t seem to talk much. I had the feeling that each was in her own private world, using the other as camouflage. I roamed from parlor to bar and back again, unable to settle and unwilling to go upstairs by myself.
Knowing what I do now, I wonder. Were we all picking up vibes that one of our group was cherishing well-laid plans for murder?
Sunday night found us at yet another Gilroy’s, way up at John O’Groats. I came upon Jim and Joyce in the lobby before tea and overheard him accusing her of buying a Gilroy package deal. I could tell that beneath her calm façade she was anxious. “They did arrange the tour, yes. Are you dissatisfied?”
“I’m satisfied, Josie, so long as nobody else complains.”
“It’s Joyce,” she reminded him.
“Sorry. Joyce.” He went into the dining room.
She turned and gave a start when she saw me, then she gave me a crooked little smile. “Five days together and he still can’t remember my name. Can you believe it?”
“Makes you wonder how he managed to accumulate all those millions,” I agreed.
I set my clock for three a.m. that night, and called Joe Riddley right after he got home. He allowed as how they had all had a splendid time, had eaten enough fish to satisfy even him for a while, and had managed to bring back both grandsons in one piece.
“You having fun?” he finally thought to ask.
“Sure am,” I said. No point in telling him I missed him like the dickens and was on a bus with several folks likely to pull out somebody’s hair before we were through. “Looks like I won’t be selecting Laura and Ben’s wedding present on the trip, though. She claims she came to see if she can live without him, and she thinks she can. Says she can’t marry a man who doesn’t need her.”
“Of all the tomfoolery—”
“It’s not utterly dumb,” I disagreed. “You and I may not fall apart when we’re separated, but you do need me, and I need you.”
“Right now I need you to get off the phone so I can go take a shower. I’m so covered with salt I could jump in a cattle pond and turn it into a second Dead Sea. Love you, Little Bit.”
Like I told Laura, marriage is about choices. If I chose to consider that a romantic way to end a conversation when we hadn’t spoken for a week, that’s my business.
By Monday morning Sherry and Brandi were avoiding each other to such an extent that when we stopped at noon at a Gilroy’s Tearoom and Sherry discovered she’d have to sit with Brandi, she stomped back to the bus and said she wasn’t hungry. Watty spoke to the manager and another table was magically set up over by the window. He fetched Sherry and ate with her himself. She seemed to be eating a lot for somebody who wasn’t hungry. That was the first time Watty had eaten in the same room with us. I wondered if he ate alone usually because of company policy or because they didn’t pay him enough to afford Gilroy’s prices.
He finished early and left. As soon as Sherry was alone, Joyce carried her dessert and tea over to the table, but Sherry looked up and said rudely, “Bug off.”
Joyce came back to our table with a frustrated expression on her face.
Joyce also made endless notes in a little notebook. I sure hoped we weren’t getting report cards when we got home. Conduct grades might be rather low.
Kenny stuck to Laura and took particular pleasure in baiting the rest of us.
For instance, as we wound our way along one narrow road amid fields of sheep, Brandi cooed, “Oh, look at the lambs. Aren’t they adorable?”
Kenny snorted. “If you can overlook the fact that thousands of people were turned off this land so those adorable little lambs could graze.”
When we stopped to admire a particularly stark and lonely vista, Marcia told me softly, “There are places up here where you can look for miles in every direction and never see another soul.”
Kenny barked that laugh that was more rude than humorous. “That’s because in one generation, between a third to a half of the people of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Inverness counties were uprooted and dispersed.”
“Leave it alone!” Laura said wearily. “Don’t be a spoil-sport.”
I nearly applauded, I was so glad she was finally standing up to him, but Kenny shrugged and said humbly, “I’m simply stating facts, shug.”
Dorothy turned on him as she had before, cheeks rosy and eyes snapping. “If we had wanted facts, we’d have stayed home and read books. I, for one, came to have a good time, and you are not helping one bit.” She snatched his book from the seat beside him and carried it back to her seat. Opening it at random, she began to read.
In a few minutes, she gave a little gurgle. “Kenny didn’t mention this part. Listen, everybody. ‘The removal of the people from the interior had struck a hard blow at an old Highland custom—the distilling of whisky. To all respectable people this was uplifting news, for the practice had a terrible effect on the moral fiber of the mountaineers. ’ ”3
Most of us chuckled. Laura brightened up enough to admit, “Those may have been MacDonalds. I had a great-granddaddy who was a bootlegger in the north Georgia mountains.”
Sherry turned around and called back, “If you’d lived here then, Jim, you’d have had some competition.”
“Read the rest of the passage, Dorothy,” Kenny commanded.
She found her place and continued, “ ‘To secure for the farmers a regular market for the grain they had been selling to illegal stills, Lord Stafford was proposing to build a distillery at Bora.’ ” She asked in a puzzled voice, “Does that mean that first he shut down the people’s stills, then he built one of his own?”
“You got it,” he snapped.
“But that’s not fair.”
Kenny laughed. “Do you think rich folks care about what’s fair? All they want is their profits.”
If he expected Jim to repent and give all his goods to the poor, he was in for a sad disappointment. Jim typed steadily like he was alone in his own office, ignoring us all.
Monday night, I shared a room with Joyce.
There was no Gilroy Hotel in Dornoch, so we stayed in a small hotel with a good view of the Dornoch Firth, which is famous for its swans. I went up to bed a bit early, planning to call home and then read awhile, but my cell phone wouldn’t work inside, so I pulled my clothes back on and headed downstairs, where I found Joyce arguing with the desk clerk.
“Water has leaked through the ceiling and is all over my bed,” she complained.
“I’m very sorry, madam, but we have no other room,” the harried clerk told her. “We’re absolutely full up tonight.”
I would have been glad to share again with Laura, but she and Kenny had gone out, and I didn’t like to move into her room without asking, so I offered, “I have two beds in my room. You can move in with me, if you like.”
Joyce accepted, although I could tell she’d rather have a room of her own. I didn’t blame her. If I had her job, I might go to my room every night and drink myself into oblivion— or curl up with good murder mysteries and picture several of our group as victims. She moved her things, then went back downstairs. I read awhile and turned out my light around eleven.
I woke in darkness to quiet weeping, then a fierce whisper. “I can’t quit now!”
She sounded so desperate, I c
ouldn’t pretend nothing was the matter, so I fumbled for the lamp beside my bed and clicked it on. “What’s the matter, hon?”
Her bed was rumpled, the covers flung back, and she stood in a long flannel gown by the window. Beyond her, the moon was bright enough to glint off the nearby firth and off tears streaming down her cheeks. Not wanting to embarrass her, I flicked off the lamp, but threw back my covers. The room was chilly and I hadn’t unpacked my robe, so I grabbed my bedspread and pulled it around me as I padded over in sock feet to stand beside her.
Her arm was chilly to my touch, so I fetched her own spread to tuck around her, and we stood like two squaws in a Western movie looking over steep slate roofs silvered by moonlight. They were lovely, with the sea just beyond. I wondered how many displaced Highlanders had yearned for the beauty they had left behind.
However, it was Joyce’s aching heart I needed to be concerned about right then. “What’s the matter?” I repeated.
Her tongue slid back and forth against her upper lip. Finally she heaved a big sigh and turned a tear-streaked face to mine. “The tour. It’s awful, isn’t it? I’m sorry I woke you up, but I couldn’t sleep, thinking about it. Kenny keeps holding us up so he can play the pipes and picking on everybody else. Marcia feels rotten. Sherry is obnoxious and Brandi just as bad—”
“—And Jim never looks at a thing,” I finished.
She tried an unsuccessful little laugh. “I’m not normally a quitter, Mac, but if it weren’t for you, Dorothy, and Laura, I’d be tempted to jump ship and go home.” Shadows rearranged her features, made her face look longer and stronger. With her hair disheveled, she could have been a wild mountain woman in a rage. Then her eyes filled again, looking like underwater sapphires as she blinked rapidly to hold back the tears. “You all must be having a terrible time!”
I went and fetched a tissue. “It’s not that bad. Most of us ignore the squabbles. We’re having a real good time, honest.” Fortunately, “we” is a flexible pronoun.
She sighed. “I wish I could be more like you. You always seem so relaxed and cheerful, and have a good time no matter where you are.”
I could think of several times in the past two years when I had not been relaxed or cheerful, and hadn’t had a particularly good time. Locked in a deserted warehouse, for example, or circling my kitchen table while a madman tried to inoculate me. However, I never turn away a compliment when offered, so I just said, “Well, honey, I have been having a good time on this trip. You did a good job of picking the places we’ve seen.”
Joyce turned away to blow her nose. “Bless your heart. You’re so sweet.” Her voice was muffled by the tissue.
“Were you raised down South?”
She stiffened.
“I’ve often noticed that folks who grew up in the South tend to talk Southern when they get tired or disheartened,” I explained, “and you sounded real Southern just then.”
She shrugged without turning around. “I went to high school up north and stayed there afterwards, but my folks were from Georgia.”
“What part?” That question is as automatic for Southerners as swatting flies. Northerners generally ask what country somebody’s ancestors came from. We’re more concerned with which county somebody’s folks come from, in case we may be related or have mutual friends. Southerners don’t really trust strangers, but we’re willing to accept you if we can establish as rapidly as possible that we have a legitimate reason to.
She hesitated. “The middle part.”
That covers a lot of territory, but I didn’t like to press her. “Are they still there?”
“No. Daddy died years ago and Mama—she died a little later.” She blew her nose again. She probably had her reasons for being vague—like the fact that her teeth were still chattering in spite of the blanket.
“I’ve lost my parents, too, and you never get over that.” We stood there for a minute or two looking out the window, then I said, “You know what I wish we had? A cup of hot tea. Shall I call down and order up some? Or would you rather get into bed and forget these dratted folks?”
“I can make tea.” Our room was so small that one sideways step brought her to her suitcase. Before I could switch on the lamp again she had reached into a corner of her case and brought out one of those little electric converters and a coil that heats water in a cup. “Herbal okay with you?” She held up two bags. “So it won’t keep us awake?”
I was so busy admiring a woman who had traveled for a week and still knew exactly where to put her hands on something in her suitcase, I was slow to answer. Seeing she was still waiting, I nodded, although I generally think herbal tea tastes like brewed grass.
Her hand hovered over her case, and she murmured in dismay, “I’ve just got one mug.”
“I bought one this afternoon.” I was already rummaging in my Gilroy’s Highland Tours bag, where I was storing smaller souvenirs. “I’m taking it to our cook, but she won’t care if I use it first. She’ll like the swans. I’ve got some shortbread somewhere, too. I bought it for my older granddaughter, but it’s silly to carry it around when I can get more later.”
Joyce went to the bathroom to fill our mugs. I heard water running and figured she was also washing her face. Sure enough, she returned with her hair combed and her face clean, looking more like her usual brown-mouse self. Pity. I preferred the wild mountain woman.
Still, we had a good old time sitting on our beds sipping tea and munching shortbread in the middle of the night. “This is the most fun I’ve had on the whole trip,” she confessed.
“It ranks right up there,” I agreed. But I sure hoped I wouldn’t have to go home and tell Joe Riddley that a slumber tea party was the highlight of my trip.
“Don’t tell the others I got so moody,” she begged. “I must be having PMS or something.”
“Your secret is safe with me, honey. In your shoes, I’d be running down some hill screaming, if I wasn’t hitting somebody with one of those big claymores.”
She smiled, then grew serious. “Would you tell me something?” I nodded. “The other night at the ceilidh, when I had too much to drink, did I say anything—well, odd?”
I thought back. “Not that I can recall. Of course, I’d had a bit to drink, as well.” When she still seemed anxious, I added, “You sounded pretty bitter, I think. I wondered if you’d been through a nasty divorce or something.”
“Oh, yes. It was real nasty.” She took a sip of tea and added, “He got almost everything—even all the furniture we’d bought together, because his lawyer listed it as ‘used.’ I got the junk we’d bought in thrift stores, because his lawyer listed it all as ‘antiques.’ ”
“What about your lawyer?”
“He didn’t do a blessed thing. But I don’t like to talk about it.” She stood and held out her hand. “You want some more tea?”
“No, I’m warmed and fed.” I stretched and yawned. “It will be good to get to Auchnagar tomorrow, won’t it? When do we arrive?”
“Sometime in the afternoon.” She went to wash both our mugs, then brought them back and set them on the dresser. “Ready for bed?”
While she went to brush her teeth, I snuggled down into my bed and tried to get the sheets warm again. As I drifted off, I had a notion that something about our evening’s chat had puzzled me, but I was too sleepy to remember what it was.
13
You don’t need to know a thing about our two nights and a day in Inverness. We mostly saw sights and shopped—except for Jim, who left the hotel early Wednesday morning and didn’t return until time for tea. Sherry, Kenny, and Brandi continued their merry game of “Let’s see who can drive the others crazy first.” It was hard to determine who was ahead.
Thursday morning, however, I woke up singing. I kept singing as I packed. By mid-afternoon we’d be in Auchnagar, where I could take solitary walks on the moor, prowl around the village, and maybe find traces of my long-lost relatives. Most of all, I looked forward to four days of not being confin
ed on a bus with the rest of our obstreperous group.
I never anticipated looking down at one of them in a coffin the very next day.
Within an hour after we got underway, though, I’d have consigned several to a lesser but still painful fate. To begin with, when Brandi and Jim got on, Jim slid into the seat by the door, so she slid in behind Watty.
Sherry climbed on and told Jim (pleasantly, for her), “You’ve got my seat.”
“I’d like to watch the road today.” He sounded about as movable as Georgia’s Stone Mountain.
Did You Declare the Corpse? Page 12