by M C Beaton
“Where is everyone?” asked Hamish.
“I suppose they’re in the television room as usual. Odd, isn’t it? I mean the way people can’t live without television.”
“Can I have my key?” asked Hamish.
Again that merry laugh, which was beginning to grate on Hamish’s nerves. “We don’t have keys here, copper. No need for them. We’re all one big happy family. I try to make it as much like a private house as possible.”
“Yes, and I suppose if anyone does pinch anything, they wouldn’t get very far,” commented Hamish cynically. “There’s no phone, so I suppose there’s no room service. Any chance o’ a cup of tea?”
Jane looked at him seriously. “Do you know that tea contains just as much caffeine as coffee?”
“Coffee would do just fine.”
“You don’t understand. Both are bad for you. But come and meet the others when you’re ready.”
Hamish sighed and sat down after she had left. He wondered whether he was supposed to change into black tie for dinner and then decided that the rugged people who came to remote, wind-swept health forms probably sat down in shorts and T-shirts.
He had a hot bath, changed into a clean shirt, sports jacket and flannels, swallowed two aspirin, and went in search of the others.
By following the sound of the six-o’clock news, he located the television room. Only one person looked up when he entered, a woman who had been reading a book. The rest were staring at the box. Jane then burst into the room. She had changed into a sort of white leather jump suit, the gohl zip pulled down to reveal that cleavage. “Drinks in the lounge,” she called.
A tetchy-looking man who held a remote control switched off the television. The small party rose stiffly to their feet. Hamish thought that they all, with the exception of the book-reading woman, looked as if they had been gazing at the television set since Jane had left on her visit to Priscilla.
A drinks trolley was pulled up near the fire. “I’ll introduce our newcomer,” said Jane. “This is Hamish Macbeth, a friend of Priscilla’s—you know Priscilla, the one I went to see. Hamish, first names will do. Heather and Diarmuid, Sheila and Ian, Harriet and John.”
Hamish’s eyes roved over the group. Which was Jane’s ex? He found the woman who had been reading had joined him. She had been introduced as Harriet. This then was Harriet Shaw, the cookery-book writer. She was a stylish-looking woman in her forties with a sallow, clever face made almost attractive by a pair of large humorous grey eyes.
“Jane told me you write books,” said Hamish.
“Yes,” said Harriet. “I came up here in the hope of getting some old Scottish recipes from the islanders.”
Hamish looked rueful. “I wouldn’t bank on it. You’ll find they dine on things like fish fingers and iced cakes made in Glasgow. Help me out. Who are the others? First names are not a help.”
“Have a drink first,” said Harriet.
“In a moment. I would really prefer a cup of tea. Jane seems down on caffeine, though. I thought she would have frowned on alcohol.”
“She seems to think it all right in moderation. Well, the couple drinking gin and tonics are Heather and Diarmuid Todd. He’s in real estate. She’s a self-appointed culture vulture.” -.
Diarmuid Todd was an attractive-looking man; that is, to anyone who liked the looks shown in tobacco advertisements. He had thick brown wavy hair and a pipe clenched between his teeth. He was smiling enigmatically and staring off into the middle distance. Despite the heat of the lounge, he was wearing a chunky Aran sweater with blue cords and boat shoes without socks.
His wife, Heather, looked older. She had blackish-brown hair and was wearing a pink jump suit with high heels. But her figure was lumpy and she looked like a parody of Jane, whom she obviously admired immensely. She had a doughy face set in lines of discontent.
“And Tweedledum and Tweedledee, that’s Ian and Sheila Carpenter.”
Ian and Sheila Carpenter were both roly-poly people with fat jolly faces and fat jolly smiles. They were flirting with each other in a kittenish, affectionate way.
“The small, bad-tempered man is Jane’s ex, John Wetherby.”
John was well-groomed, slightly plump, looking as if he had been reluctantly dragged from his office. He was wearing an immaculately tailored pin-striped suit, a shirt with a white separate collar and striped front, and an old school tie.
“He’s a barrister,” said Harriet. “So what do you do?”
Hamish hesitated. It was obvious that Jane did not want anyone to know he was a policeman. “I work for the forestry,” he said.
Heather Todd, who had come up to them, caught Hamish’s last remark. Her eyes bored insolently into his. “Good heavens,” she said, “where did Jane pick you up?”
“In Lochdubh, on the mainland,” said Hamish amiably.
Heather’s voice was Glaswegian, although it would take a practised ear to register the tact. Among the middle classes of Glasgow it had become unfashionable to try to affect an English accent, the painful result of that effort usually coming out as what was damned not so long ago as Kelvinside, the name of one of the posher areas, where glass came out as ‘gless’ and path as ‘peth’. The new generation of middle-aged, middle-class snobs affected a transatlantic drawl (“I godda go’) but occasionally throwing in a few chosen words of Scottish dialect to show they were of the people, there being nothing more snobbish than a left-wing Glaswegian who longed for the days when that city was a dump of slums and despair instead of having its present successful image. These same snobs talked about ‘the workers’ and their rights frequently, but made sure they never knew one, short of indulgently telling some barman when they were slumming to “buy that wee fellow in the cap a drink.”
“Do you realise what you and your like are doing?” demanded Heather.
“No, tell me.” Hamish looked around, wondering whether he could ask Jane to relent and fetch him a cup of tea. There did not seem to be any staff.
“Covering the Highlands with those ghastly conifers, and all so that rich yuppies in England can get a tax shelter.”
“Forestry is no longer a tax shelter,” pointed out Hamish.
“There arnae that many jobs in the Highlands, and forestry’s a blessing.”
“Well, that’s not the way I see it,” said Heather, casting her eyes about her to draw an audience from the rest. “The massacre of the flow country in Sutherland, the damage to the environment…” Her hectoring voice went on and on.
Hamish did not like the dreary new pine forests that covered the north of Scotland, but someone like Heather always made him feel like defending them.
“I’ll find you a cup of tea,” said Harriet’s voice at his ear, and she tugged at his sleeve. They slipped quietly away while Heather continued her lecture, her eyes half-closed so that she could better enjoy the sound of her own voice, which went on and on.
Harriet led kim into a sterile-looking kitchen where everything gleamed white under strips of fluorescent light.
“I bet it’s herb tea,” said Hamish, looking gloomily about.
“No, real tea. I’ve been in charge of the kitchen while Jane’s been away.” Harriet opened a cupboard and took down a canister of tea and then plugged in an electric kettle.
“Never tell me Jane does all her own cooking,” Hamish said more in hope of being contradicted than anything else.
“Not while the hotel is running.” Harriet heated the teapot and spooned in tea-leaves. “Women come in during the day to do the cleaning and make the beds. But for us, her friends, she does do the cooking.”
“Health stuff?” asked Hamish.
“Well, yes, but you only have to suffer for the next few days. I’m doing a traditional Christmas dinner, and, of course, tonight’s dinner,”
“Which is?”
“Very simple. Sirloin steak, baked potato, peas and carrots, salad. Before that, soup; and after that, butterscotch pudding.” She filled the teapot.
“And were you all friends before you met up here?”
“No,” said Harriet. “We’re all new to each other. In fact, I was very surprised to get Jane’s invitation. We’re not that close. I felt I was putting on too much weight—oh, about four years ago—and went to a health farm in Surrey. Jane was there, slim as ever, but finding out how a health farm was run. We talked a lot and then met once or twice in London for lunch. How did you meet her?”
“I’m a friend o’ a friend o’ hers,” said Hamish. “That’s all. I had nowhere to go this Christmas and she asked me along.”
The grey eyes regarding him were shrewd. “And that’s all? You’re not Jane’s latest?”
“Hardly,” said Hamish stiffly, “with her husband present.”
“Her ex-husband. But that wouldn’t stop Jane. Anyway, she’s made a go of things here. Of course, she imports a lot of staff during the tourist season, chef, masseur, waitresses, the lot. The Todds, that’s Heather and Diarmuid, were paying guests, and so they’re now here as non-paying friends. The same with the Carpenters.”
“More like acquaintances than friends.”
“Exactly. Off with you. I’ve got to prepare dinner.” Harriet took down a tray and put teapot, cup and saucer, sugar and milk on it, handed it to Hamish, and shooed him out.
Hamish returned to the lounge, carrying the tray. He was feeling much more cheerful. He liked Harriet Shaw.
But no sooner had he taken off his sports jacket and tie, for the room was hot and there did not seem to be any rigid dress code, and established himself in an armchair, than Heather Todd bore down on him and stood over him, her hands on her hips. “Are you a Highlander?” she demanded.
“Yes,” said Hamish, carefully pouring tea and determined to enjoy it.
She threw back her head and laughed. It was a copy of that laugh of Jane’s, which always sounded as though Jane herself had copied it from someone else.
“A Highlander, and yet you are prepared to contribute to the rape of your country.”
Hamish’s eyes travelled up and down her body with calculated insolence. “Right now, I’ve never felt less like raping anyone or anything in ma life.”
Heather snorted, and one sandalled foot pawed the carpet. “What of the Highland clearances?” she demanded.
“That wass the last century.”
“Burning the poor Highlanders’ houses over their heads, driving them out of their homes to make way for sheep. And now it’s trees!”
“I hivnae heard o’ one cottager being turned out to make way for a tree,” said Hamish, trying to peer round her tightly corseted figure to see if Jane or anyone else looked like coming to his rescue.
“What have you to say for yourself?” Heather was asking.
“What I haff to say,” said Hamish, his suddenly sibilant accent betraying his annoyance, “is that when the Hydro Electric board was burying whole villages under man-made lakes, your sort never breathed a word. Now that it iss politically fashionable to bleat about the environment, it’s hard for folks like me to believe you give a damn.”
Heather did not listen to him. He was to learn that once launched, you could say what you liked, she never heard a word. Irritated, he rose and pushed past her and sat on the other side of the room.
He was joined by John Wetherby. “I could kill that woman,” said John. “Pontificates from morning till night.”
“Well, maybe her husband will do the job for you.” Hamish looked longingly at the tea he had been forced to abandon.
“Him! That wimp. Have you seen him pass a mirror? He stops dead-still and gazes longingly at himself like a man looking at a lover.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” said Hamish. “What brought you here?”
“I am Jane’s ex-husband.”
“Aye, just so, but what brought you?”
“Oh, I get you. I couldn’t believe she’d made such a go of things. When we were married, she was always full of harebrained schemes to make money. That’s how I got her to agree to a divorce. I said I would put up the money for this place if she agreed. I thought she would be back after a year, asking me to bail her out, but not a bit of it.”
“And weren’t you embarrassed about seeing her again…after the divorce, I mean?”
He gave a cackle of laughter. “You don’t know Jane. Have you heard her psycho-babble yet? There’s not one idea in that head of hers that doesn’t come straight out of a woman’s magazine. An article on ‘How to Be Friends With Your Ex’ was one she enjoyed a lot. Are you the latest amour? She occasionally liked a bit of the rough stuff.”
Hamish was too amazed to feel insulted at this bit of blatant snobbery. “Did she have affairs when you were married?”
“Yes, she said we had become sexually stagnant and went out to experiment.” His voice grew reflective. “It was that hairy truck-driver I couldn’t take.”
Hamish gave John Wetherby a prim look of startled disapproval and rose and moved away. The Carpenters, surely, would be safe company. Sheila was reading a book and Ian was sipping a large whisky and smiling vaguely at nothing.
He sat down next to Ian. “Topping place,” said Ian, looking around.
“I hear you’re a farmer,” said Hamish. “Funny, I wouldn’t have thought farmers would go to health farms. Although, come to think of it, maybe that’s not true. I just had a vague idea that perhaps health fanatics went in for it.”
Ian patted his round stomach complacently. “Sheila keeps up with all the fads. We each lost five pounds when we were here in the summer. Of course, we put it all back on again the week we got home. Didn’t we, sweetie?”
“Mmm?” Sheila was buried in a book with a pink cover called Love’s Abiding Passion. Her lips were moving slightly and she was breathing heavily through her nose.
And then Heather was before them. “What are you reading, Sheila?” she demanded. Sheila gave a little sigh and held up the book so that Heather could read the tide.
“My dear, dear Sheila,” said Heather, shaking her head. “Surely you can find something better than that pap?”
“It’s a marvellous book,” said Sheila, her fat cheeks turning pink.
Heather suddenly snatched it out of Sheila’s hand and flicked over the pages and then gleefully read aloud.
“There was a tearing sound and the thin silk cascaded at her feet. He thrust his hot body against her naked one and she could feel his aroused masculinity bulging against her thigh.”
I ask you, Sheila, how can you bear to read a book like that?”
Sheila snatched it back and heaved herself out of the sofa and waddled from the room. Her husband stood up and glared at Heather. “It’s better than the works of Marx any day.”
“It would considerably improve your wife’s mind to read Karl Marx.”
“Yah!” said Ian. “What d’you lot think about the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, hey?”
“That was not real Communism,” said Heather; “Real communism…”
“Stuff it, you old crow,” said the farmer and left the room with the same waddling walk as his wife. Hamish felt like running after him and shaking his hand.
Before Heather could speak to him again, he darted for the door and let himself out into the night. The high wind of earlier in the day had descended to ground level and was tearing and shrieking and moaning along the shore, where seals lay at the edge of the crashing waves, their curious eyes gleaming pink from the neon sign of The Happy Wanderer.
The wind was cold. Hamish wished he had remembered to put on his jacket. Priscilla often called him a moocher. He hugged his thin body against the bite of the wind. He should have stayed where he was in Lochdubh. He could imagine someone saying they would like to strangle Jane, but no one would really think of doing it. There was not enough real about the woman to encourage great love or great hate. And that marriage of hers! When John had been talking about that truck driver, Hamish had felt slightly sick.
His cold would get wo
rse if he stayed outside. He walked back in. Jane was standing talking to Heather. Heather was not hectoring Jane about anything but looking at her with open-mouthed admiration and hanging on every word.
“Is there a telephone?” Hamish asked Jane.
“There’s one in my office you can use. It’s over there,” said Jane, pointing to a door on the right of the lounge.
Hamish walked over to where she had pointed. A ceramic sign on the door said ‘Jane’s Office’ and was decorated by a wreath of painted wild flowers.
The office was strictly functional; large steel desk, steel filing cabinets, two easy chairs for visitors.
Hamish sat behind the desk, picked up the phone and dialled Tommel Castle, now called Tommel Castle Hotel. He recognised the voice of Mary Anderson, a local girl, who operated the hotel switchboard. “Can I speak to Priscilla?” he asked.
“Herself is not back,” said Mary. “She went to Rogart.”
“Is the storm bad?” asked Hamish, trying to blot out pictures of a car upended in a blizzard by the side of the road with a woman and a dog lying beside it.
“Oh, it’s real bad. That’s Hamish, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Has she phoned?”
“No, but they got it worse over there than here, so folks are saying. Maybe the lines are down.”
Hamish thanked her, put down the receiver, then lifted it again and dialled his parents’ home.
His mother answered. “Is Priscilla there?” demanded Hamish, his voice sharp with anxiety.
“Aye, she’s here. But you cannae talk to her, son.”
“Why?”
“The poor lassie’s still fast asleep by the fire. My, Hamish, she used to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and now she’s nothing but skin and bone. She cannae leave. She’ll need to stay the night. I’ll let her sleep a bit and then give her a good supper and put her to bed.”