Mac
You can tell a lot about folk by how they interact with animals. The girl hadn’t really turned a hair when the hounds rushed at her on the doorstep. She’d put up with them parading around her new abode, and seemed unfazed when Jethro cocked his leg against the basket of logs in the utility room. Jethro likes to leave his mark, and Max will eat anything he can find. Floss is more subtle. She’s very needy, falling in love with perfect strangers and casting a spell over them with her melted chocolate eyes. I’m lost. Take me home, she seems to beg. I spotted Lucie trying to tease a knot from one of her silky spaniel ears. She went up in my estimation, that’s for sure, but it’s early days.
Instead of returning home, I take a left and head down to the village. I’m eager to see Arthur and impart what little knowledge I’ve gleaned about our new addition. It was Arthur who’d first mooted the idea of a Girl Friday. He’d said it would set his mind at rest, knowing I wasn’t up at the house all alone.
I’m afraid I’d taken umbrage at first, accused him of sneaking in a carer by the back door. ‘I’m only seventy, you know. Hardly decrepit! And anyway, I have the dogs for company, and you’re only a phone call away.’
I’d tried to keep my recent ill health a secret, but nothing gets past my son. I gave in reluctantly to the Girl Friday idea, taking pains to point out that she would be more of a PA for my writing and research, although a little light ironing wouldn’t go amiss. I began to warm to the idea, visualising a biddable foreign exchange student with excellent editing skills, a cheery smile and a nice signature dish of eggs Benedict.
Lucie Snowe did not fit that description. Arthur had yet to meet her and I could only imagine the conversation when he did.
We reach the village and I call the dogs to heel as a tractor chugs by. The farmer raises a slow hand and I dip the brim of my waxed hat in reply. Floss is missing, but that’s not unusual. She can take off for days, on the trail of something only she can see. I march the two collies across the road. The cafe lights are warm and welcoming. Max starts to drool, and Jethro lifts his leg on the pavement sign that reads Muir’s Artisan Bakery and Tea Rooms. I’ve always wondered about the use of the plural, when tea is invariably served in a singular room.
Arthur is behind the counter, polishing a glass. No dogs, he mouths, but I ignore him and sit by the window. The collies creep under the table. The cafe is Monday-quiet, just a couple of women from the church gossiping in a very genteel way. They glance in my direction. No doubt I will be their next topic. Anita, the waitress, appears at my side. Anita ticks all the boxes on my fantasy Girl Friday wish list. She is quiet, competent and highly intelligent. Her parents are from somewhere in India, and rather well off, I believe. They take a very dim view of her little job here in the cafe, but Anita goes her own way, enjoying a rather hectic student life up at the university, when she’s not brewing coffee. Ah, to be back on campus. I experience a little tug of regret.
‘I’ll have a latte, dear. And maybe a cake. Just a small one.’
She smiles, her head slightly tilted. Her eyes are dark, lustrous and slightly unnerving. I always feel that Anita sees much more than you’d like her to. ‘A pancake? A Bakewell tart?’
‘Maybe a little bigger than that.’
She trots off and Arthur comes over. ‘Well?’
‘Lucie’s fine. Got her settled in the cottage. I said she needn’t start properly until tomorrow. She seems a bit out of sorts.’
Arthur makes a noise that resembles a snort. ‘Great. You’ll end up looking after her!’
‘Not at all. There was something about her at the interview that I liked. Give her time to come out of her shell, and I’m sure we’ll rub along very nicely.’
It will be nice to have someone young about the place. For a man in his early thirties, Arthur can be a bit middle-aged at times. He’s cautious, like his father, inclined to think things through. Lucie seems to have an impulsive streak, the way she applied for the job like that, fully prepared to up sticks and take on a new challenge. So like myself at that age.
Anita approaches with my coffee and a meringue the size of a large grapefruit. My mind is already leaping ahead to all the little jobs I can now delegate.
‘Thank you, dear.’ I smile at Anita.
Yes, I think Lucie and I will rub along quite nicely.
Lucie
I never knew tears could be so hot. All those trashy novels I read as a teenager? Scalding tears in every one. Heroine meets hero; hero dumps heroine. Cue scalding tears. I feel like everything has turned to stone, but still waters boil up inside me and overflow. When I’m in bed, alone, they escape, burning trails down into my ears, matting my hair. And in the morning my eyes are on fire.
I put on a brave face, use make-up to hide the shadows under my eyes, pin back my hair because it’s too much effort to wash it. My reflection shows a pale, subdued girl. I look cold, shivery, as if nothing will ever warm me up again.
In the night, a baby’s cry wakes me. At least, that’s what it sounds like to me – a thin wail, out there in the black night – and I come out of sleep shaking inside, my heart hammering. I lie in the narrow bed, cold but sweating, eyes straining, trying to place myself in the dark. I see the loom of a strange wardrobe. The air smells unfamiliar. I make out a thin strip of yellow light where the curtains don’t meet, and recognition comes slowly.
The security light is on. That’s it, that yellow sliver of light. I lie still, soaking up the heat under the duvet. The noise has stopped, but I can’t settle. I’ll have to get up, investigate. Security lights don’t just come on by themselves.
The rug is cold beneath my feet. I can feel the hard ridges of the stone tiles beneath. I root around for my slippers and wish I’d taken the time to unpack my fleecy dressing gown. I’d dug out an oversize T-shirt for sleeping in, and I hug that more tightly around my chest. Flicking on the lamp, the room comes into sharp relief. Not familiar, yet, but normal. The furniture has its own new landscape, and the only thing I’m sure of is my suitcase, now gaping open, with my clothes spilling out. I should have unpacked, but I’d been so tired. Maybe I could do it now? Sleep already feels pretty distant. I might make a cup of tea. The baby starts crying again.
It’s outside.
Wrenching open my bedroom door, I run down cold passages, skidding to a halt in the kitchen. I can still hear it, a soft sobbing that scrapes at my insides like nails. It’s coming from the back door. Carefully I make my way through the maze of wellies and baskets and boxes, searching for light switches, snapping them on. My breathing is beginning to calm. I’m trying to listen to the rational part of my brain. It isn’t a baby crying. It isn’t a sob. It’s a whine. I find the back-door key and poke it into the lock.
‘This had better be good,’ I mutter, turning the handle. The whining stops. I can hear excited snuffling. ‘You’d better have a bloody good excuse.’
I open the door and Floss, Mac’s spaniel, bounces in, wagging her tail like it’s morning and everyone should be up. I make tea. We go back to bed. Floss leaps onto the duvet before I even take my slippers off. I’m too tired to argue. I turn off the light and squeeze myself into the space that’s left. We find a kind of shape; I bend my knees, she spirals into the back of them. Within seconds she starts to snore softly. It’s oddly comforting.
Mac
I put down my pen and sag against the back of the chair. I’ve been sitting here since 6 a.m., and now that the words are finally flowing I can’t let them go. Things have been a bit stuck of late, ideas bobbing around like fish, and me grown too slow to catch them. But this morning things feel different, as though Lucie’s arrival has brought a gust of fresh air, stirring up the leaves of my imagination.
I’d asked her about her family a couple of times, but her replies had been rather muted. I gather she has a sister, but there’d been no warmth to her description.
I’d nodded knowingly at the time. Sibling rivalry. You get that with sisters. Best not to dwell on i
t. It had reminded me of something though, this sister thing. What was it now? That evening I’d gone through all the dusty old volumes on my bookshelves, not quite sure what I was looking for.
I stretch my arms out in front of me, flex my fingers and rotate my neck. Something cracks, and my insides shrink accordingly. I’m getting paranoid, waiting for the next little blip, holding my health up to the light like a badly stitched seam. I’m getting frayed.
Somewhere in the house, a key grates in a lock. The front door opens, and a ghastly echo carries along the passages. The hall always has that empty-house ring to it, regardless of how many bits and bobs I pad it out with.
The sound of footsteps carries towards me. That will be Arthur. My heart sinks and immediately I go into guilty mode. I am a bad mother. A can’t-be-bothered mother. My eyes drop automatically, going to the photograph on the desk. My own mother, wartime drab but happy in a floral tea dress she’d knocked up from remnants. We have bad mother genes, I suspect. There is a coldness in us. I remember Mother feeding a poorly dog tinned salmon while we kids scoffed bread and dripping. The thing is, I fear I’m heading for the ultimate fail. The leaving-your-child fail.
Footsteps approach my study.
‘Come in,’ I say, without enthusiasm.
Arthur sticks his head round the door, hair rumpled, flour on his glasses. ‘Good morning, Ma. How’s it going?’
He always asks and I always reply, ‘Crap’, or some such. He remains unperturbed.
‘How long have you been sitting there? Shall I put the kettle on? I’ve got some of yesterday’s flapjacks.’ He holds aloft a brown paper bag.
I shrug, conscious of a new pain in my right arm. Which arm is it for a heart attack? I’d been hoping for a quick in-and-out visit – Ma, have you got any Kilner jars? Ma, can I borrow some vanilla? – but Arthur seems bent on a let’s-have-a-cuppa-and-a-chat sort of thing. I sigh and close my notebook.
‘I don’t know why you don’t use the computer,’ he says. ‘It would be much easier.’
I get reluctantly to my feet. It always takes a little time to straighten, so I do it casually, like I’m not really trying.
‘I’m going to get the girl, Lucie, to type up my stories.’
‘Good idea!’ Arthur smiles and my heart unbends a little. Guilt is ever present between us. Nowadays, it’s mainly his. He plays the dutiful son, making sure I’ve locked up at night and that I don’t starve to death, when really it’s me who should be full of remorse. In my low moments I ask myself if I’ve been a good enough mother, but I’m never sure of the answer. I’ve always spread myself too thin, competing with male academics with neat little wives to support them. Jim never complained, though I suppose it took its toll – all those times he had to look after Arthur when I was giving a paper at some conference or other. The meals that never materialised because I was locked in the study, elbow deep in research. I can still remember the tentative knocking at the study door, and my son’s timid voice: Mummy, are you coming to put me to bed? Maybe Jim shouldn’t have put up with so much. He should have reminded me that some things are more precious than books. It might have saved a lot of heartache.
‘Has she got over her jet lag yet?’
I let out a reluctant chuckle. ‘Bus lag, more like. She did appear a little green about the gills. I’ll give her an easy week.’
I follow Arthur out into the cold hallway. I feel bereft, away from my warm cell, my books, my pen. I think I may be wearing my face. The dogs get up as soon as he opens the kitchen door and there’s a lot of tail- and body-wagging, pink tongues and general doggy happiness. Arthur pretends to do a head count.
‘Wait a minute – you’ve one missing.’
‘Floss. Been out all night, the rascal. I suspect she’s adopted our newcomer. There’s a job for you. Perhaps you could drop by the cottage and bring her back?’
He hesitates, glances at his watch. ‘I really need to go back to the cafe. I’ve scones to bake.’
I make impatient noises. ‘It won’t take you a minute and I’m sure Anita can pop a tray in the oven. Please? And it will give you a chance to introduce yourself.’
‘Okay.’
The word doesn’t carry much enthusiasm, but I smile and retrieve the brown bag from the table. ‘Take these with you as a welcome offering. Lucie might be partial to a flapjack.’
Arthur slopes out of the door, the way he used to do as a teenager when I asked him to cut the grass or carry out some other boring chore. But perhaps he’ll find Lucie more appealing than an overgrown lawn.
Lucie
Mac shuffles off ahead, gesturing with one arm for me to follow. She’d told me to show up around nine thirty, start typing up some of her work. She ushers me into her study, a small, untidy room stuffed full of books and papers.
‘So what exactly do you do?’ I ask.
‘I’m a retired history lecturer. I specialise in folklore and the oral tradition.’
I latch onto the retired. ‘So what are you doing now?’
‘I’m specialising in folklore and the oral tradition.’
Her look suggests that I am a particularly dim student. I suppose experts never stop being experts.
‘Sounds interesting. Are you writing a book?’
In reply, she waves a hand towards the bookshelves that line her study. They’re mahogany, or some kind of expensive dark wood, crammed with every volume you could imagine, from paperbacks to the sort of crusty leather-bound specimens you see on the Antiques Roadshow. An entire shelf is dedicated to the books of Dr Margarita Muir. She told me at my interview never to call her Margarita, it was too girly. Everyone calls her Mac.
I move closer to the books and trail a finger along their spines. The Scottish Farming Tradition. Bothy Ballads: Volumes 1–3. The Scottish Miller’s Tale . . . It goes on and on.
‘This will be my eleventh book,’ she says, in case I’ve missed the point. ‘A collection of short stories based on local legends. I thought I should get more creative in my old age, so I did a fiction-writing course last year. Can’t abide all that technical nonsense – the PCs and the printers and the what-have-yous. Complete Luddite. Always will be.’
‘So you write in longhand.’ I turn my attention reluctantly to the writing desk, which looks like it has been turned over by burglars. There are jotters and scraps of paper everywhere; pens and pencils; mugs with cold, sour dregs in the bottom. I spy the corner of a laptop peeking out from beneath the debris. Mac picks up a black notebook and hands it to me.
‘Begin at the beginning. There are two completed stories in here, and one I’ve just started. You’ll need to plug in that contraption and set up a whatsit for my manuscript.’
I want to ask who typed up her other books. Perhaps her son, Arthur the Baker? He called round yesterday. It had all been a bit awkward, actually. I’d opened the back door to let Floss out, just as Arthur was about to knock. My first impression of him was of his fist in front of my face. I’d stepped back sharply and he’d spent a long time apologising while Floss squatted on the bundled-up cherry tablecloth and peed like a racehorse.
That was a conversation killer. Neither of us could look away from the steady stream of piss bouncing off the plastic. Arthur cleared his throat.
‘Um, did you know your tablecloth is outside?’
‘Yes. I put it there. I don’t like cherries.’
‘Right.’ He’d rocked back a little on his heels, stuffed one hand into the front pocket of his jeans. In his other he was clutching a brown paper bag. ‘I’ve come to take the dog back, actually. And to introduce myself. I’m Mac’s son, Arthur.’
We fumbled the obligatory handshake and the brown paper bag hit the dirt. Arthur swore beneath his breath as he picked it up and dusted it down.
‘Oh – these are for you.’ He’d handed me the bag with a smile. ‘It’s okay. They don’t contain cherries.’
He’d taken off with a cheeky wink, the spaniel at his heels.
I unearth Ma
c’s laptop, smiling a little as I recall the wink. At a guess, I’d say Arthur is in his early thirties, a little older than me. I’d labelled him bland and solid, a bit like one of his own loaves. Carefully measured, like you’d always know what you were getting. That wink had given me a glimpse of a younger, more carefree man.
‘What’s the title of your book?’ I ask Mac, as the computer boots up.
‘Fire, Sleet and Candlelight,’ she’d replied without hesitation.
‘Snappy.’ I type it in.
‘It’s from the “Lyke-Wake Dirge”, one of the ballads Scott collected in his Minstrelsy.’ She’s lost me already, but, like most clever people, she hasn’t even noticed and presses on. ‘In the north of England and in Scotland, a charm was uttered around an open coffin before interment. I think the juxtaposition of the natural elements of fire and water with man-made candlelight sums up not only what I want to achieve with this collection, but the essence of the Scottish canon, the human compulsion to find out what is beyond the civilised circle of light.’
‘Riiight.’ I pick up her notebook. Beyond the civilised circle of light. A shiver walks up my spine.
‘I’ll leave you to get on with it then. You can have elevenses in the kitchen with me.’
‘At what time?’
‘Eleven.’ She gives me a look and ambles off.
There is little left of the castle now, and what remains appears to be growing out of the cliff top, lashed together with ivy and moss. The roof has long since caved in and the stone fireplaces are choked with rubble and old crow nests. This was a home once. If you take the time to listen, you might hear it sigh into the silence. You might imagine the tap, tap of the tapestries against the wall as the draught sings down the passageways; you might hear the creak of the hall door, or the scrape of boots and the sound of horses in the yard. You might catch the breathless laughter of two sisters, feel the swish of their skirts as they rush by. After all, the past is only just out of sight.
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