Emma was getting on well with her pump when the hull clumped above them and she sensed Roddy going tense again. Andy’s boots came through the hatch until they were standing on the steering-seat; then she heard a scraping on the hull; the bare midriff tensed with an effort taking place out of sight, and the head and shoulders slid through the hatch with a rush; last of all came the arms, lowering a wooden crate. It was obviously heavy, and obviously too Andy would have found the job easier if Roddy had been on the hull above him to lower it down. But Andy wouldn’t ask and Roddy wouldn’t offer, so Andy was putting the pressure on by showing that he could do the job himself. He slid the crate along towards where Emma was working.
In it she saw three black slabs, each as big as a family bible but with a filler-cap and two terminals on the top.
“I’ll have to build a frame for these,” he said as he picked them out of the crate. “We don’t want them sliding about. In fact I’ll have to build four frames, if we’re going to trim the boat properly.”
“Couldn’t you do it with car batteries?” said Finn. “You’d only need four of them in all. One out of your Lotus, one out of my old banger, one out of Poop’s car and one off one of the tractors.”
“It would work,” said Andy, “but it’d only give us forty minutes running time, at the most. These jobs would give four hours when they were new, so they should still be good for at least two.”
As soon as he was out of the hatch Emma tried to pick one of the cells up, and found it too heavy to manage at the angle she was kneeling. He came back almost at once with three more, but when he had twelve of the cells stacked neatly on either side of the rear seat he disappeared for quite a long time. Emma finished her pump and edged round the cells towards the hatch, steadying herself by holding on to a little wheel which obviously turned a shaft running down into the centre of the keel. In fact there was an arrow showing which way to turn it, and the words “Weight Release” embossed on its upper surface. “Weight” reminded her about the batteries. She was frowning as she climbed out.
Andy was standing in the doorway of the boathouse, naked to the waist still but calmly smoking one of his little cheroots and watching the drumming rain as though his hair were not sending little chilling rivulets all down his brown back. There was a wheelbarrow beside him, covered with a piece of plastic sheeting.
“I’ve finished my pump,” said Emma.
“Great,” he said, turning round. “I’ll fit it together in a tick”
“Why don’t you wear a mackintosh?”
“We’ve a feud with the MacIntoshes. They stole some of our sheep in 1423.”
“No, but seriously.”
“Seriously, Cousin Emma, I’d sweat like a pig if I had to lug these cells around in any sort of waterproof. I’ll tell you a secret about rain which all good Scotsmen know—it gets you as wet as you think it does. If you cringe along with your collar turned up and your shoulders hunched you get soaked to the skin; but tell yourself that it’s only a bit of mist and stride through it, and you’ll find you can shake off the few drops that stick to you, like a dog does.”
“How much do the cells weigh?”
“About ten pounds apiece.”
“What happened to the old batteries? The ones that were put in her when she was built?”
“They’re still there—you’d have to hack them up to get them out.”
“So you’re putting a lot of extra weight in. Will that be safe? Will she still float?”
“Sure thing. Andy Coaches told me that Father had the hell of a time getting her to go under at all in Coronation year. He remembers bringing some big stones down to make extra ballast. We may have to do the same—or I thought I might ship a few extra cells, in case some of these pack in while she’s going.”
“Oh, that’s all right. Shall I help you with these? I could lower them down to you.”
Emma lifted the plastic sheet aside and saw that the barrow contained an electric fan heater as well as another batch of cells.
“What’s that for?” she said. “If you can think yourself dry, can’t you think yourself warm?”
“I can, but I can’t think an electric motor dry. If it were a smaller job I’d unbolt it and put it in Caitlin’s oven, but as it is I’ll have to do the job with hot air, like a politician. Mary says it’s time for lunch, so we’ll give it a blast while we’re eating. Did your stomach tell you it was one o’clock, or were you looking for me?”
“I suppose I wanted to know about the weight.”
“The batteries sinking Anna? Cautious little Saxon, aren’t you? Hi, you don’t think I’m going to risk your life in this contraption?”
“I don’t expect you want to risk anybody’s.”
“Oh, no one would miss the odd McAndrew. Look, the rain’s letting up. Nip back now and you won’t get wet. I’ll bring the others.”
Emma raced home, leaping between puddles and wondering whether she had missed a chance to ask Andy to be nicer to Roddy, or whether that would just drive him deeper into the feud. She stood on the verandah and watched a fresh wall of rain come swishing up the loch and blot out the landscape; through it the three McAndrews scuttered, soaked and laughing, up the steps.
The drenching seemed to wash the quarrel away, for the moment at least, and lunch was a cheerful meal. Half way through his first helping Andy slapped his knife and fork on to the table and said “I’ve got it!” They all looked at him.
“I thought it was fishy,” he said, “Cousin Emma making such a fuss about one or two of us drowning in Anna.”
“I don’t think it’s fishy at all,” said Finn. “She doesn’t want to spend her holidays going to funerals, especially Scots’ ones. When we want to be mournful we can outmourn any nation on earth.”
“Ingenious but wrong,” said Andy. “She does want to spend her holiday going to a funeral—a triple one. If only one or two of us drown, there’ll be some left over.”
“Bags I be remainder,” said Roddy.
“Cousin Emma’s evil scheme is to do us all three in together,” said Andy.
“How?” said Finn. “Will it be comfortable?”
“I don’t know the details yet,” said Andy, “but I doubt it.”
“She’s got a tame monster,” said Roddy. “A Botswanan one. That’s why she was so interested in ours, I bet you. She’s brought hers here in a crate labelled ‘Fancy Umbrellas’, and she’s going to sneak it into the loch to gobble us up. Now she’s worried in case Anna and her monster collide, thus giving the plot away. She spent the whole of this morning polishing Napoleon’s nose, which is a sure sign of nerves.”
“I didn’t see a crate,” said Finn.
“British Rail have lost it,” said Roddy. “It’s sitting in a siding at Rugby. It might get out one night and gobble up the stationmaster. She’s worried about that, too.”
“But why?” said Emma slowly. “I mean, I hate books where it turns out that the murderer was just mad. It’s . . . it’s inartistic. I must have a reason.”
“Hear hear,” said Finn. “I don’t mind having a mad cousin in the family, but I draw the line at an inartistic one.”
“Nobody would notice a mad one,” said Roddy.
“Oh heavens,” said Andy, “how dim can you get? Haven’t you realised that with us out of the way all this would belong to Cousin Emma?”
He waved a forkful of beef at the watery landscape. Roddy picked up his chair and shifted it a few ostentatious inches away from Emma and nearer Miss Newcombe. Emma gulped and felt her scalp prickle: to own a loch, a mountain, a liniment company! And all (apart from the company) so beautiful. She saw the others looking at her, even Miss Newcombe, and knew that in Andy’s joke there were cruel little crumbs of something else, like sand in lettuce.
“Emma darling,” said Miss Newcombe very seriously. “If anything did happen to the children, might I please stay here?”
“It’s all right, Poop,” said Andy. “I’ve put a bit in my will about
that. Cousin Emma not to inherit unless Poop Newcombe is granted security of tenure, with rights of socage, spillage and ullage.”
“But what about old Andy?” said Miss Newcombe. “The Major?”
“It’s a condition of Father’s will too.”
“I expect it is,” whispered Finn.
“But aren’t there lots of other cousins?” said Emma. “You told me my great-grandfather had lots of elder sisters.”
“It’s a sad story,” said Finn.
“A sad, sad story,” said Andy and Roddy in chorus.
“Don’t worry, darling,” said Miss Newcombe. “When they say that, like that, all together, it’s a sort of joke—or at least they think it is. I sometimes wonder, in my bath for instance, what they’d say if they really wanted to tell someone a sad story.”
“Shut up, Poop,” said Finn. “I want to tell Cousin Emma a really sad story. Your grandmother was our grandfather’s favourite daughter, and when she married he was inconsolable.”
“In-con-solable,” said Andy and Roddy together.
“The Huts were full of gabbling girls, with no one to keep them in order, and his only son was miles away at a horrible English prep school. So to keep himself occupied he bought a parrot. He had a theory about the origins of language, and he thought a parrot might . . .”
“But they don’t know what they’re saying,” said Emma.
“Aha! Grandfather had a new idea. He didn’t try to teach the parrot English—he tried to teach himself parrot. He sat on the verandah all day long, squawking at the bird and listening to it squawking back. His diaries are full of notes of noises—I’ll show you. Everybody finished? Shall I ring?”
“You haven’t told her why it’s a sad story,” said Roddy crossly.
“You’re the worst story-teller this side of Inverness,” said Andy.
Mary came in pushing the trolley with a vast bowl of fruit salad on it, and started to collect the dirty plates.
“Sorry,” said Finn. “The point is, Cousin Emma, that the endless squawking drove half the girls mad and they had to be shut up, and the other half caught psittacosis from the parrot and died.”
“Mary,” said Emma. “Would you please tell me if any of that’s true?
“It’s true about the parrot, and himself sitting there squealing at it, if that’s what Miss Finn’s been telling you.”
“But is it the reason why none of the girls married except my grandmother?”
“Ach, nonsense. Himself was a bit of an old tyrant, and liked to be mollycoddled. He wouldn’t have any of his daughters marrying, and by the time he passed away they were all a bit elderly, poor things.”
“But my grandmother . . .”
“Ran away, she did. Weren’t they telling you that? Indeed it is more interesting than all their nonsense . . .”
“Sh, Mary,” said Finn. “We’ve been keeping it from her.”
“She’ll have to know now,” said Roddy.
“You see, Cousin Emma,” said Andy, “there was this Russian Prince who fell in love with your grandmother when he spied her from afar at a Highland Gathering at Balmoral. Instantly he insinuated himself into the bosom of the family, disguised as a . . .”
“Labrador retriever?” said Emma, seizing the moment when Andy was slopping a spoonful of fruit into his mouth. She had noticed all the McAndrews using the pauses of eating as a method of thinking up their next lie without seeming to hesitate.
“Shut up. You have no soul, you beastly Saxon. Romance means nothing to you. He disguised himself as a second under-footman, so great was the sacrifice he was prepared to make for love. He paid secret court to your grandmother, poor foolish girl. Her heart was won. The night was fixed. The carriage was ordered, with muffled wheels. A sloop waited at Mallaig, ready to whisk them back to the splendours of the Imperial Court. With a beating heart she waited at her window. Came the rattle of hooves on the bridge. Head high, she walked into the utter dark and climbed up beside the driver. One kiss, then the whip cracked and they were away.”
“How super,” sighed Miss Newcombe.
“It wasn’t as super as all that, actually. Her clock was fast and she’d climbed up beside a travelling trouser-salesman called Tupper, who hadn’t been having much luck in the Highlands because of our preference for the kilt. He’d only stopped to ask the way, but after that kiss . . .”
Andy made the mistake of stopping for another mouthful. Emma, who normally lived in a world of facts, suddenly felt that she could do it too.
“Let me guess the rest,” she said. “Everybody in the house rushed wildly in pursuit, and were never seen again. The Russian had gone away to prepare for the elopement, and now when he arrived at the right time he found the house empty. So he just waited. He waited for years, and in the end he married and had two boys and a girl. He’s still alive, but he has to pretend to be interested in beetles so that he can go away to Geneva when anybody comes who might notice his Russian accent. Why don’t you all go back to Moscow and claim the throne of the Czars? I’m going to have a double helping of my cream. Will you please tell me the real story some time, Mary?”
“Indeed I will, Miss Emma. But look, it is leaving off raining, just as the wireless guessed. Isn’t that a miracle?”
“Hurrah,” said Miss Newcombe. “I’ll be able to sunbathe.”
It was true. In ten minutes the rainstorm had picked up its skirts and bustled away to trouble other valleys, and pale sunlight lit the whole rinsed landscape. Emma thought of the dark, cramped hole inside the submarine, and thought at the same moment of a way of separating Roddy and Andy for the afternoon.
“Can I climb up to Darwin’s Pimple?” she said. “I’d love to do that, if Roddy could sail me over and show me the way.”
“Um,” said Andy. “Poop could go to.”
“I’ll look after the boat while they climb to the top,” said Miss Newcombe. “It’s quite a good place to sunbathe, if there aren’t any horse-flies.”
“No you won’t,” said Andy. “You’ll climb to the very top. I’ll have my telescope out to make sure you get there. You’re fat.”
Roddy slid away from the table.
“No I’m not. Honestly. I weighed myself yesterday. Or the day before.”
“I bet you’re at least a pound over the magic number. Father wouldn’t like that if he turned up suddenly. Go and weigh yourself.”
“But it means taking all my clothes off.”
“Poop,” said Finn. “If you’re right you’d have to take your clothes off to sunbathe. If you’re wrong you’ll have to take them off to put on thicker ones. So you’ll have to take them off anyway.”
“Yes . . . I suppose so,” said Miss Newcombe, and left the room frowning, As soon as her footsteps had disappeared across the hall Roddy nipped in.
“How much?” said Finn.
“Twelve pounds,” said Roddy.
Andy jumped up, all good temper forgotten.
“You miserable little idiot,” he said. “She’s bound to realise something’s wrong. Can’t you ever behave sensibly?”
“Oh, I am a ninny,” simpered Roddy. “I meant ounces.”
It was just as though he wanted to get the feud going again, thought Emma. Andy, having lost his temper, had no way of getting it back. Yesterday he had deliberately demonstrated Roddy’s poor head for heights in front of Emma, so now Roddy had got his own back by deliberately making him lose his cool in front of her. He went very white, opened and closed his mouth once or twice and started round the table. Roddy edged away, and in the nick of time Mary wheeled the big trolley in, parked it between the boys and started to clear the table. Emma thought Finn had probably rung for her on purpose.
“Sorry, Mary,” said Roddy to her as he sat down and began to scoop peach segments into his mouth. He managed to gobble very smugly. Andy thumped to the sideboard, cut himself a piece of cheese and thumped out eating it.
“But she isn’t fat,” whispered Emma.
“
Not yet,” said Finn. “But she will be if she doesn’t take exercise. She needs a lot. If she were a pig, she’d be what they call a good do-er. Father wrote her proper weight on her bathroom wall before he left, but she won’t believe a few ounces count, so she lets herself go for a couple of pounds and then she panics because she can’t get rid of it in a few days, and then she stops eating anything at all, which makes her ill and miserable. And when she does get back to the magic number she rings up the baker in Mallaig and gets him to send out two dozen cream buns and eats them at a sitting. It’s kinder to fiddle her scales; she’ll be blissful when she gets back from her walk and finds she’s lost all twelve ounces.”
Roddy threw back his chair and dashed for the door as though he’d forgotten an appointment.
“I’ll bring the boat round,” he called.
Emma Tupper's Diary Page 5