Cauldstane

by Gillard, Linda

  He heard the emphasis he’d laid on the word “boys” and looked nonplussed, unsure for a moment how much I knew about Meredith’s distinctly un-maternal feelings towards Alec. My face was a bland mask as I said, ‘Leave Alec to me. I might be able to talk him round. And if I can’t, the final say is yours, surely? But can we resume our routine? Provisionally, at least? Ten o’ clock tomorrow, in here? Business as usual. Until Alec boots me out.’

  ‘Business as usual, my dear. And I’m really looking forward to it!’

  I’d entered the library to find a sad, old man. I left the Laird of Cauldstane in fine form, a twinkle in those roguish blue eyes. If his future was uncertain, his past was not. For the immediate future, Sholto was content to share highlights of that past, re-living times when life had seemed happier and – mislaid toes notwithstanding – simpler.

  ~

  As I walked back to my room, I was thinking about Sholto’s traveller’s tales and how often the most preposterous of his stories were the ones least embellished. Years of being a ghost writer, listening to the version of their life that subjects wished to present to a waiting world, meant I had a highly developed crap detector. You learned to recognise the rehearsed grief, the paranoid fantasies. You also learned to interpret silences and odd gaps in the CV.

  Instinct always told me when I was listening to truth and when I wasn’t. It was something that had hampered my relationships with men, apart from Rupert who, as a scientist and a priest, was preoccupied with truth. He’d said, with something like pride, that I saw right through people, but that I did it without judging. He said that was what had made me a good novelist and would also make me a good ghost writer.

  Events had proved him right, but a highly developed crap detector didn’t make for a comfortable life. Once the crap had been detected, it was rarely clear what should be done with it. Professionally, I was required to ignore it, unless I thought honesty would make the book better or more commercial, but in my private life I’d discovered I was able to tolerate very little toxic waste.

  Now something was bothering me about Alec – in particular, his account of his mother’s death.

  I understood why he deemed the current coolness between us necessary. We were at loggerheads over the future of Cauldstane. That was hardly conducive to a blossoming sexual relationship, despite what you might read in lightweight romantic fiction. He might also be having second thoughts about me. I’d practically called him a coward – not my finest hour. Possibly he thought there was no future in the relationship – I lived in London and travelled a lot for work, Alec was rooted in the Highlands – but what he said was, he thought I might have no future at all if I didn’t leave Cauldstane.

  Alec struck me as a truth-teller. I didn’t always agree with him, but I had always believed him. Except when he’d talked about how his mother died. The more I thought about his two accounts of the accident, the more uneasy I felt. Long experience with liars of all creeds and colours told me Alec wasn’t lying. But neither was he telling the truth.

  Who actually knew what happened that day, apart from Alec, aged eight? Liz MacNab and possibly Meredith, both dead. Any other evidence was hearsay. The cause of the accident was Alec’s horn startling the horse, which reared and bolted, but in his most recent account, the one he’d given me when I’d goaded him into a response, Alec hadn’t even mentioned the klaxon. He’d been emotional, incoherent, clearly distressed by his memories. Yet when I’d first asked him about them – under happier circumstances, admittedly – he’d given a coherent and dispassionate account, almost like a prepared speech. At the time I’d put that down to the fact he must have had to explain what happened many times. His composure hadn’t seemed surprising. What was odd was the latest version, an account in which he didn’t even mention sounding the horn, the source of thirty-two years’ guilt.

  Thinking back to his first account, I remembered that even then, I hadn’t felt happy. My crap detector again? Hardly. I’d known Alec wasn’t lying, so what had bugged me? I tried to recall exactly what he’d said. The words had made an impression on me – partly because Alec had made an impression on me, but also because I habitually listened hard. Failures with tape recorders over the years had encouraged the development of a good memory and the taking of copious notes.

  Back in my room, I opened up my notebook and turned to the page where I’d recorded details of the accident.

  What had Alec actually said? To begin with he’d been vague.

  There was a lot of noise…

  Noise seemed to be a big factor in both accounts. Noise and fear. What had he said next? Something about the hooves?

  Hooves clattering on the cobbles… the horse neighing…

  Why hadn’t he mentioned sounding the horn?.. Ah, but he did. I remembered the phrase my bloody klaxon – the words of the man, not the boy. And that was the order in which he’d mentioned things. Hooves clattering on the cobbles… the horse neighing… a woman screaming… my bloody klaxon… Cacophony. Again, the adult word to describe the experience of an eight-year old.

  I felt sure that’s what Alec had said. Now I thought about it, I realised that even at the time, this hadn’t made sense. The order was wrong. The horse was rearing before Alec used his horn. In fact, did it not make more sense that he would have sounded his horn because he thought he heard a horse and rider coming his way? What would a bright boy do if he thought he was about to be trampled by a horse? He might sound his horn and try to swerve out of the way. That could cause him to fall off his bike – which was how Meredith had found him.

  If Alec’s running order was correct, it meant he hadn’t been responsible for the horse rearing, it had been startled by something else. What? And why did Alec tell everyone he’d frightened the horse?

  There was no one to ask other than Alec, who admitted all he could remember now was what he’d told Meredith when she found him lying on the ground, crying. She was the only one who might have had an accurate idea of what happened. And she was dead.

  It’s hard to believe how long it took me to realise what I had to do. I’m a writer, a biographer, a researcher. I’m used to dealing with family archives on a regular basis. Well, they say love makes you blind. It must also render you stupid. That’s the only explanation I can give for the time it took me to realise, if I wanted to know exactly what happened that day, all I needed to do was read Meredith’s journal.

  ~

  Sholto had said he wanted me to get rid of the diaries. He’d actually told me to “burn the lot”, so I had no qualms about taking a couple of cardboard boxes from the recycling pile in the utility room and carrying them up to Meredith’s room. No qualms, but I decided to do it early in the morning when I was unlikely to be seen or interrupted. As well as the boxes, I took a bag with my usual writing paraphernalia.

  Mounting the stairs to the third floor, I realised I wasn’t the only one busy before breakfast. Rock music was coming from the Long Attic – vintage Springsteen, unless I was mistaken – and once I was on the landing, I could hear rhythmic grunts. Alec or Fergus engaged in some punishing routine on the gym equipment, I supposed.

  No one in the Long Attic would have heard me open Meredith’s door. Nevertheless, I opened and closed it quietly. I switched on the light and experienced once again a sense of revulsion – worse this time now I knew what the journals contained and how Sholto felt about them. I hurried over to the window, eager to let daylight in, but as I tried to drag one of the thick velvet curtains aside, my fingers penetrated the cloth with an ugly tearing sound. Horrified, I surveyed the damage. The worn red fibres had parted and there was a ragged tear, but I noticed there were other threadbare patches where you would grasp the curtains to draw them. Probably I’d just made an existing tear worse. I was still mortified, but knew Sholto would very likely get rid of the curtains along with everything else. They were good for nothing, not even a jumble sale. I re-arranged the damaged curtain so it fell into its usual folds and resigned myself t
o working by artificial light.

  I’d checked the date of Liz’s death on the MacNab family tree I’d drawn up. Kneeling on the floor by the bookcase, I pulled out the journal for 1980. There was just the one. Meredith must have had an uneventful year. I felt unaccountably nervous about opening the diary and I was still worried that someone – well, Alec – might come into the room and challenge me.

  Partly to calm myself, partly to make it clear I was making myself useful and not just snooping, I piled some of the diaries into a box. When it was almost full, I sat down again, picked up the journal for 1980 and turned the pages until I found May 1st, the day Liz MacNab had died. Alec’s eighth birthday.

  Even before I read the entry, I was struck by the change in Meredith’s handwriting. Always black, bold and slanting, the entry for that day was remarkable for the number of exclamation marks and underlined words. Given the trauma everyone experienced that day, I wasn’t surprised to see her writing was more erratic than usual. It sloped downwards on the unlined page, so that the overall effect, even before reading the content, was of turbulent thoughts committed to paper in a rushed, chaotic fashion.

  Then I began to read what she’d written.

  These were not the words of a woman in shock, grieving for someone she knew as a family friend, albeit a rival for her ex-lover’s affections. As I read on, it became clear that Meredith had recorded the events of that tragic day in a state of exultation…

  It’s happened! My prayers have been answered. Sholto is free at last. I’m so happy I could burst!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Liz is dead. I thought she might only break arms or legs. But she’s quite dead.

  She put up a fight, I’ll say that for her. She clung on for dear life, but the mare was determined to unseat her. She was panic-stricken. (Not Liz, Bella, her mare.) Horses go mad when they’re startled. All they think about is getting shot of their rider and bolting, so Bella bucked like a corkscrew until Liz was thrown, screaming, through the air. She hit the cobbles from quite a height. It was terrifying, even though I’d moved back, well out of the way.

  As soon as horse and rider parted company, Bella was off, galloping through the courtyard and out into the countryside. She’s been gone for hours now.

  I could tell Liz was dead from the way she was lying on the ground, with her limbs pointing in funny directions. She had blood coming out of her ears – from the head injury, I suppose. Those hard hats are useless. I don’t know why people make such a fuss about wearing them – and they ruin your hair. Riding is simply a very dangerous sport. But that’s why it’s so thrilling! You’re trying to control an animal, one quite capable of killing you, so you have to be the one in control. That’s why I’m such a good rider. I love to be in control! And today I was. Totally. Everything went exactly as I’d hoped. Even the bit I hadn’t planned was an absolute godsend. I feel it was all meant to be!

  Poor Alec had his birthday ruined, but he’ll have plenty more. It was just bad luck – his, not mine – that he should have cycled into the courtyard at that precise moment. I say bad luck, but was it Fate? Fate providing me with the final piece of the jigsaw. When I saw him come speeding through the archway into the courtyard, I thought he’d had it. (That would have been quite a coup – the laird’s lady and his heir.) But he tooted that ridiculous horn and Bella swerved. He still fell off his bike, but I think he was howling with fright more than anything. He hadn’t actually seen Liz’s body at that point, so I seized my chance. I ran over and hauled him to his feet, then I grabbed hold of his shoulders and shook him. I pretended to be angry and told him he’d killed his mother. I said he’d frightened the horse and Liz had been thrown and broken her neck. ‘Your mummy’s dead,’ I said, ‘and it’s all your fault, Alec!’ Then I dragged him over to Liz and made him look. Oh, then he really started! Screamed blue murder. I ignored him and repeated the sequence, told him how he’d scared Bella, how she’d bucked, how he’d seen his mother thrown to the ground, seen her die.

  I was worried stiff someone might appear at any second, but it only took a few moments to tell Alec what he’d “done”. By the time I’d repeated it a couple of times, I almost believed I’d seen it myself! Then when I heard people coming out of the castle, I held him tight, so he couldn’t run away. It must have looked as if I was comforting him, but all the time I was repeating the story in his ear, like a mantra. “Your mummy’s dead and it’s all your fault.”

  By the time Wilma and Sholto arrived on the scene, Alec was completely beside himself. My riding jacket was quite ruined – smeared with snot and tears. I do believe the wretched boy wet himself too. There was an ominous smell.

  Everyone gathered round, of course, but I made sure it was me who told them what had happened. Fortunately Alec was in too much of a state to speak, so everyone believed me. I told them I hadn’t actually seen what happened because I’d been in the stable with my own horse, but I’d heard the horn, then the clatter of hooves on the cobbles and Liz screaming. I’d rushed out (I said) to find Liz dead, the horse gone and Alec lying on the ground having fallen off his bike. I said I’d asked him what had happened and he’d given me a distraught (but surprisingly coherent!) account of the accident. I suggested we shouldn’t badger him with any more questions as he appeared to be traumatised by what he’d seen. That was a bit of quick thinking on my part.

  But my whole scheme was brilliant! Brilliant and daring. Even if Alec hadn’t swallowed my story, what could he have said? He didn’t see what happened, Liz was dead before he cycled into the courtyard, so the most he could have said was I’d shouted at him, accused him of startling the mare. But he’s only eight. Who’d set any store by something said by a hysterical child? But everyone accepted my version of events. It made complete sense, thanks to Alec and his blessed bike.

  I just can’t believe how well everything worked out! I’d hoped Liz would be injured, crippled for life maybe. I didn’t dare hope she’d die. Of course, it took some nerve. I might have been badly injured myself, but I’m used to taking risks and, as they say, “Fortune favours the bold”.

  Well, Fortune certainly favoured me today. When Liz was mounting Bella, I thought the mare seemed a bit nervous. Did she sense what I was about to do, I wonder? Horses are terribly clever, so maybe she did. I “helped” Liz by holding her other stirrup as she mounted. Nothing could have seemed more natural, though of course she didn’t really need any help. When she was not quite in the saddle, I withdrew the hatpin concealed in my hair and stabbed the mare. I was careful not to let go of the pin and withdrew it immediately, leaping backwards as the horse bucked violently. As she clung to the reins, Liz was shouting, “Bella, stop! Stop!” which only made things worse. Bella was determined to throw her and eventually she did.

  And that was that.

  Unfortunately there was nowhere I could conceal the hatpin, other than putting it back into my hair. I couldn’t risk anyone finding it in the courtyard, so even though it was sticky with Bella’s blood, I shoved it back into my bun. I had the presence of mind to touch Liz’s head, so my hands were bloody. No one would have registered the mare’s blood on my hands. (After all this, if I ever get to sing Lady Macbeth, I’ll be fabulous in the rôle!)

  The blood came off in a nice hot bath. It was wonderful to relax after the strain of the day, though the Cauldstane plumbing leaves a lot to be desired. (I will have to get that seen to once I’m installed.) I washed the hat pin carefully, then dropped it behind a bookcase in the guest room the MacNabs allocated to me. I doubt it will ever be found. Even if it is, no one will ever know what that pin accomplished today. My happiness!

  People don’t realise, you see. That’s what Zelda said when she gave it to me. “You can do a lot of damage with a hatpin.” Indeed!

  Later…

  Someone just brought Bella back. She was in a terrible state, poor thing. I offered to settle her in the stable as everyone else was exhausted. She was scratched and cut, as if she’d plunged th
rough a hedge or a fence. All very convenient! No one will notice her stab wound, even if they look. Really, things couldn’t have worked out better for me.

  I shut the journal and set it down beside me, on the floor. I leaned against the bookcase and sat very still, with my eyes closed, wondering if I was going to be sick.

  My initial impulse was to scream. I wanted to scream and scream at the top of my voice, so everyone would know how wicked the world was, how unjust, how cruel. But someone was on the other side of the wall – Alec, probably – and so I had to remain silent.

  But I couldn’t remain still. I got to my feet and, scarcely thinking what I was doing, went over to the window and swept a curtain aside. I found what I was looking for. I picked up the photo of Meredith at her eighth birthday party – the same age Alec had been – and removed it from the frame. I dropped the frame on the floor and held the photo up in front of me with both hands and then I spat on it. I ripped it in half, then in half again. I kept tearing until the pieces were tiny, then I hurled them at the portrait of Meredith hanging over the bed. They fluttered down onto the hideous gold bedspread, like confetti.

  I returned to my boxes and started hurling the rest of the journals in. When there were none left on the shelf, I made a conscious effort to calm down, gathered up the pieces of photograph and dropped them into a box. My heart was still thumping with fury, but now I had to decide what to do. And it was imperative I should make the right decision.

  My first coherent thought was that I must show the journal to Alec, show him he was completely innocent of his mother’s death. My second thought – possibly rather more coherent – was that the truth would probably be even harder for him to bear than the lie he’d been made to believe. Since there was no possibility of Meredith being put on trial, since justice could never be done, wasn’t it best to just leave things as they were, allow the family to continue to believe Liz had died in an accident?...