by Debby Holt
‘That would be very interesting, but…’
‘What time do you finish work on Friday?’
‘I’m supposed to lock up at five but I have my bike and…’
‘That’s all right. We can put it in the back of my car. I’ll pick you up at five fifteen. I have to go now.’
And that was it. He left the shop before she could raise any objections or even have time to work out if she had any objections. She noticed too late that he’d left his stockings on the counter. She did run out after him but he’d already gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
On Wednesday evening, Anna was on her way out of St Peter’s as William was on his way in. She called out, ‘William!’ and watched with glowering eyes as he came across to her. ‘I heard this morning,’ she said, ‘that you had a farewell do at the pub last night.’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘It was good.’
‘I’m sure it was. Did you not think to ask me to come along?’
William frowned. ‘I did. I asked you last week if you were free and you said you were working.’
‘You didn’t say what you were planning. I might have been able to change my shift.’
‘You didn’t need to,’ William said, ‘I knew I’d see you at Trevor’s party. Which reminds me, it’s quite a smart do, so wear a dress.’
She stared at him with mounting irritation. ‘I do know what to wear to engagement parties.’
‘Great. I’ll see you Saturday. And by the way, have you given Marnie’s message to Tess?’
‘Do you mean the message, Marnie says hello?’
‘“Marnie says hello and thank you.”’
‘I haven’t seen Tess recently. She’s in Scotland now.’
‘Can’t you call her?’
‘The reception is terrible up there. Can’t the message keep? Is Tess so important to Marnie?’
‘The thing is…’ William hesitated. ‘Tess was very good to her.’
‘In what way?’
He shrugged. ‘I can’t say.’
‘I don’t understand. You can’t say or you won’t say?’
William looked at his pager – which hadn’t beeped – and said, ‘It’s odd you speak to your sister so rarely.’ And then he looked at his pager again and said, ‘I have to go.’
As Anna cycled home, she felt increasingly indignant. Who was he to stand in judgement on her sisterly responsibilities? Tess was as bad as she was about keeping in touch. And if Marnie’s anodyne message was so important, William could at least explain why. And actually, a man who was taking a pretend girlfriend to his brother’s engagement party was in no state to sit in judgement on the sibling relationships of others. She would tell him that on Saturday.
She arrived home to an empty flat and remembered that Olivia was going out to dinner with a man called Jason. She wished she could haul herself out of her black cloud. Her whole psyche seemed to be soaked in bile and her future looked bleak. Her career, as far as Miss Diamond was concerned, was a joke. So was her social life. In the last ten months she had had two fleeting and dismally unsatisfactory relationships. Here she was, in her youthful prime, on her own, jealous of Olivia and a man called Jason.
Her phone went and, picking it up, she felt instantly better. ‘Hello, Patrick,’ she said. She went across to the sofa and settled down with her feet tucked under her. ‘How nice to hear from you. How are you?’
‘In need of sympathy. Lola threw up over me and the carpet. Fizz is at dynamic yoga and I’m sitting here smelling of sick. How about you?’
‘Oh, I’m all right. Work wasn’t great today. At least I’ve had no one throw up over me.’
‘That’s a perk of parenthood. Fizz is going to Glasgow for the weekend. I know it’s work but two nights in a hotel beats spending a weekend with a sick child. I hope you’re feeling sorry for me.’
‘Yes, Patrick, I am.’
‘Good, because I want support. Come and join me on Saturday evening. We could talk about Wimbledon days without boring anyone else. I need you to save me from terminal self-pity.’
‘I’m supposed to be going to a party with a friend…’
‘I can’t say I’m surprised, I knew you’d probably have plans…’
She heard herself say, ‘I could probably get out of it.’
‘Oh, Anna, could you? Already I feel better. If you come at eight you won’t have to help with putting Lola to bed. You’re welcome to come earlier of course.’
‘I don’t know a great deal about putting children to bed. I’ll come at eight. See you then.’
She felt quite breathless. She was letting William down, she knew that. He’d asked her to come to Trevor’s party over a month ago. And he was moving on to Reading. How to explain that as soon as Patrick asked her, she knew it was imperative to go? I’m a case of arrested development, she could say, I need Patrick to kick me forward. She could imagine William’s response. He’d say she was mad, but she was used to that.
She rang him before she could change her mind. He sounded as if he were in the middle of a football scrum.
‘Where are you?’ she asked.
‘At a farewell party.’ William raised his voice. ‘Not my own.’
‘It’s all right, I’m not angry now.’
‘I can’t hear you, I’ll go to the other end of the bar… What did you say?’
‘William, I can’t come with you to Trevor’s party, I’m sorry. Something’s come up and I feel I have to go. First time you’re back in London, I’ll take you out to make up.’
‘It’s Patrick, isn’t it?’
‘It’s difficult to explain. I’ll tell you when I see you.’
Someone called his name and he said, ‘I have to go.’
She felt bad about William. She honestly felt she had no choice.
Jamie was waiting for Tess on Friday, leaning against a battered old Land Rover. He took her bike, lifted it effortlessly into the boot and went round to open the passenger door for her. This was probably the first time that a man had opened a car door for her. Grandma would be impressed by his manners. She watched him climb into the car and start it up. She asked, ‘How is your mood today? Are you still feeling truculent?’
‘On the contrary,’ Jamie said, ‘I’m feeling quite benevolent. I’m always benevolent when showing people round my castle.’
This was not the first time he had referred to ‘my castle’. The use of the possessive pronoun triggered a distant memory. When they were children, whenever there were visitors, Anna would ask them, ‘Would you like to see my guinea pig?’ with the same combination of pride and affection.
They drove out of the small town and on into the open countryside, only to be stopped by a farmer crossing the road with his sheep. Jamie spoke for the first time since he’d got into his car. ‘It’s rush hour,’ he murmured.
She laughed. There was only one other car on the road. She was struck again by how still and patient he was. He didn’t drum his fingers on the steering wheel, he simply sat and watched the sheep as they made their leisurely way across to the other side. ‘You left your stockings behind,’ she told him and, encountering a blank look, added, ‘You bought them on Monday for your mother. I’ve got them here. I’ll put them on the back seat.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Does your mother live round here?’
‘No. She re-married some time ago and moved up near Oban. She and her husband run a small country hotel.’
‘Do you see her often?’
‘They work very hard. I go up when I can.’
‘You must miss her.’
‘Well,’ Jamie murmured, ‘I have my castle.’
He was, she suspected, only half joking. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said. ‘Tell me the history.’
‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘It might take some time.’
‘I want to know. I’m interested.’
‘Well then.’ Jamie took a deep breath. ‘It was built in the f
ourteenth century and owned by Sir Richard Palmer, a friend of the English king, Edward the First.’ The road was finally clear. Jamie drove on. ‘There’ve been many unpleasant English kings but Edward the First was one of the nastiest.’
‘You’re sounding like your cousin again.’
‘She’s my second cousin and any history book will confirm what I say. He was a very nasty man and he deserved a friend like Sir Richard.’
‘Why? What did Richard do?’
‘He stole the king’s horses and weapons from time to time. When William Wallace began his rebellion, Richard deserted to William’s side. He must have been a smooth-talking charmer. Wallace was captured and hung, drawn and quartered but Sir Richard was forgiven until he made the mistake of deserting again, this time to the side of Robert the Bruce. That wasn’t a great career move. Richard was captured and Edward had him brought down to London where he was castrated and disembowelled with his entrails burnt before him while he was still alive.’
‘That is disgusting.’
‘And then,’ Jamie continued, ‘he was hung, drawn, quartered and, finally, despatched into the hereafter. They didn’t leave things to chance in those days. Most of the castle was burnt down and a few years later it was taken over by another family and rebuilt and all was peaceful.’ He paused. ‘Then it was burnt down by the English again after the Battle of Flodden.’
‘There is a distinct edge to your voice when you mention “the English”.
‘I’m sorry. I find this quite emotional.’
She smiled. ‘I feel for you. So what happened then? Was it rebuilt again?’
‘It is that sort of castle. It refused to die. It remained more or less intact until the Civil War when Cromwell’s forces did their worst. What you are about to see was mostly built in the eighteenth century by a family who converted it into a tower house. They held on to it until 1901. That was when it was sold to my family. They lived there for a while but it finally defeated them. It was leaking everywhere and they had no money for repairs. Look over there.’ He pointed to the only sign of human habitation: a solitary grey tower in the distance. ‘That’s my castle,’ he said. ‘By the time my grandfather inherited it, it was in a terrible state and he vowed to restore it. I can remember as a child helping to clear rubble from pathways.’
‘So the castle was saved?’
‘It was. Grandfather built up a successful legal practice in Edinburgh and he even established a branch in London; in fact, he bought a flat there. But every available penny went to the castle and so, thanks to him, it rose like a phoenix from the ashes.’
They turned into a narrow tree-lined lane and Jamie lapsed into silence. Tess had told the Commune on Monday evening of her chance encounter with Jamie, and Great-aunt Katherine had launched once more into a diatribe against his family. She could remember his grandfather, she said, he’d been a very stubborn man. Tess told Jamie this now and he gave a slight smile.
‘People often accuse me of being stubborn,’ he said, ‘when what they really mean is that I’m determined.’
‘Sometimes,’ Tess said, ‘they might just mean you’re stubborn.’
‘To be honest, I can’t see the difference.’ He pointed to two neat little cottages on the left. ‘I lived in the first one for fourteen months while I did them up.’
‘They’re lovely.’
‘They are now. I nearly froze to death at the time. I started renting them out last year. They’re both occupied at the moment.’
They drove through an imposing stone arch and suddenly they were there and Tess caught her breath. Perched on the edge of a lush, tree-covered valley was Jamie’s castle, standing to attention like a grizzled old soldier guarding Paradise. It was an L-shaped tower rather than a castle, albeit one with rounded corners, battlements and a balustraded balcony. To its left, the hill fell steeply down to meet the River Tweed, to the right was dense woodland. The place was like something out of a horror film or a medieval fairy tale. Tess breathed, ‘Oh Jamie, I love it!’
He gave a careless nod but she could see he was pleased.
‘It is rather fine. Come on, I’ll show you around.’
For Tess, entering the castle was like walking into one of Scott’s novels. She had feared its spirit might be neutered by all the functions that took place there. She needn’t have worried: the place was made of sterner stuff. The Great Hall was full of trestle tables laid out for a wedding the next day but the lighting was muted, there were candlesticks on the tables and Tess could easily imagine banquets in years gone by when weary soldiers would meet to discuss the day’s fighting. There was so much to take in – the hall with its vaulted ceiling and its walls decorated with ancient shields, the spiral staircase leading to a small room with a pit dungeon which was supposed to be haunted, a bedroom which Jamie assured her had definitely been slept in by Mary Queen of Scots and another that had seen a tragic murder. And everywhere they went, Jamie told stories and anecdotes in his soft level voice, love of his castle showing through with every word.
When they finally climbed up to the battlements, they stood in the open air, the wind brushing Tess’s hair against her face. She buttoned up her thin black jacket and gazed about her, taking in the sharp grassy incline, the dark blue river below and beyond it the equally steep hillside with its clusters of trees and grassy spaces. To be here, she thought, was to elevate the soul. She smiled at Jamie with shining eyes. ‘It’s so dramatic and yet so calm. I’ve been to Glencoe and one can feel the violence of its past, but here, it’s just… glorious.’
‘It’s like the Border Country,’ Jamie said, ‘grand and wild and very romantic.’ He saw her shiver and said, ‘It’s also rather cold. I’ll take you back now.’
On the way home, he talked about his efforts to turn the castle into a profit-making concern and the plans he had to repair the outbuildings if only he could find the money. ‘The trouble is, the Borders are awash with castles. We’re all vying with each other for tourists.’
‘You really ought to read Scott’s novels,’ Tess told Jamie. ‘Your castle is so like the one described in The Bride of Lammermoor. That would be a good tourist angle for you. You still haven’t told me why it belongs to you. Did your father give it to you?’
‘My father left my mother when I was ten and moved down to England. My grandfather was not pleased. When he died he left the London flat to my brother, and the castle to me.’
‘It seems a bit hard on your father. Didn’t he mind?’
‘He’s never been a man to worry too much about possessions. And he always thought my grandfather’s obsession with the castle was crazy. Now he thinks I’m crazy too. So does my brother.’
‘My mother and sister think the same about me. They think I’m obsessed by Sir Walter Scott.’
Jamie shrugged. ‘Speaking as one obsessive to another, I’d rather spend my life caring too much about something than caring too little about anything.’
They were approaching Melrose now and Tess gave him the directions to the Commune. She was conscious of the fact that she wished to see him again. She was also concerned that this simple wish might bring with it a trail of possible complications.
Jamie said, ‘Tess, can I take you out to dinner next week?’ just as if he’d read her mind, and then he said something so outrageous that she almost gasped. ‘I will of course expect something in return.’ He absolutely had read her mind.
Tess kept her voice admirably level. ‘Would you like to tell me what it is you expect?’
If he noticed that the atmosphere in the car had dropped to freezing point, he didn’t show it. ‘It happened at the party,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking of you ever since.’
She folded her arms. ‘Have you?’
‘I have. And now, after this evening, I’m more convinced than ever. I can’t think why I didn’t think about him before. You’re right. I should use Scott to sell the castle. So this is the deal: I take you out to supper and you tell me how to do it. Is tha
t a fair transaction?’ He gave her a fleeting glance and said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s not the most exciting way to spend an evening. I shouldn’t have asked you. I always forget that other people aren’t as fascinated by my castle as I am.’
And Tess, ashamed of her unfounded suspicions, found herself in the unusual position of persuading a man that she wanted to go out to dinner with him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Anna kissed Patrick’s cheek. ‘You smell nice,’ she said.
‘I’ve done my best. Lola’s still not well. She threw up again tonight. I’ve showered and slapped the cologne on but I still smell of sick.’
‘Seriously, you don’t.’
She sat at the table while Patrick cooked, and they drank the Rioja she’d bought. She asked about former schoolmates and was struck by the inability of men to show interest or even mild curiosity about the personal details of people they knew. He could tell her that Felicity Eggins’ second husband seemed a nice guy but had no information as to why her first marriage had failed. Richard Graham – a rather sweet loner at school – was earning a fortune in the City but Patrick had no idea where he lived or whether he had friends now. Most extraordinary of all was the fact that Gavin Millar had joined the Army.
‘We went to a party in Wimbledon last year,’ Patrick said. ‘Gavin was there. He’d just got back from a long stint in Afghanistan.’ Patrick might have been telling her Gavin was an estate agent for all the excitement he showed. To be fair, he was busy squeezing cooked garlic cloves out of their skins which looked like a difficult operation.
‘Gavin was in Afghanistan?’ Anna said. ‘I don’t understand. Gavin loathed sport at school. What happened to him? Did he change after I left?’
Patrick frowned as if this question had only just occurred to him. ‘I don’t know that he did. He started going to the gym in the sixth form.’
‘Did you ask why he’d joined up? What did you talk about?’
‘I can’t remember.’ Patrick’s face cleared. ‘I think we talked about Andy Murray. He’d been there for the final game.’