Henry’s head swam. He felt quite sick. He leant his head against A Child’s Guide to Macramé. What in heaven’s name was going on?
Elena
Craigston Castle, south-east of Banff – seat of the Urquhart family – Current chiefship held by American branch of family – Tartan green and buff with stripes of darker brown and large squares of thin red . . .
Her notebook lay forgotten on top of her jacket. For long minutes she had been rigid with excitement, voraciously consuming page after page.
For here he was! She had surely found him. Angus Urquhart, acclaimed SAS hero of World War II, also veteran of the Spanish conflict, gunrunner and – yes! – eyewitness to the fall of Malaga. Saints be blessed, for no doubt this was he. And here also a photograph, taken on his eightieth birthday in 1996. His beard white, his blue eyes clear and proud, the calves of his legs still muscular below the pleats of the green and buff kilt. With a dog at his side, he stood erect beside a shallow river in a grey landscape of stones, his smile satirical not kind. Capable and alert, with many evil years left in him.
Elena closed her eyes and touched her forehead to the shiny surface of the photograph. ‘I will shame you.’
The book was full of praise for his valiant deeds. She skimmed the text again. Parachute drops into occupied France, secret camps, intelligence gathering, carrier pigeons, brave forays against enemy strongholds, and more –
. . . awarded the Military Cross for courage above and beyond the course of duty . . . a daylight raid . . . village swarming with Germans . . . stormed into the square in a single jeep, leapt out and opened fire . . . killed ten, leapt back in and drove off . . . sustained only minor wounds.
Survival miraculous . . . confusion covered the escape of twenty-six Frenchmen about to be executed. “Foolhardy,” wrote his commanding officer, “showing utter disregard for danger, but gallantry of the highest order.”
‘No, it is not enough.’ She sprang to her feet. Somehow, she must find him. The librarian was unhelpful, but the book group, maybe someone there would know the way? And first she must have a photocopy of these pages to wave under his nose – Yes, my dear young lady, I am he, soldier and hero – before she unmasked him and found the way to bring him to his knees, begging her absolution, which she would never, ever, give.
Peter
Luck of the devil – U-turn through double doors into corridor behind. All clear. Book group, bollocks, he’d barge straight in. Memory glowing with shelves of Yellow Pages smack next to Gaelic dictionaries beside the door. He wouldn’t have to cross the room. FU’s eyes might be unnerving, but goosey stares he’d brazen out, no sweat.
Hold on! Fuck it! No! Through other door, here she breezed, the pint-sized guardian of the Reference Room, turning his way, heading straight towards him, smiling her discomfiting smile, fixing him with those canny, uncanny eyes. And yes, she did mean him.
Try to turn and run. But no, the eyes had him, he’d never seen such eyes. Might think in the normal way of things that here was bed for night plus leg-over, but somehow not these eyes. Did she know him after all? What was her game? She had him like the proverbial bunny in a beam.
Henry
When his heart let up thundering in his ears and he emerged from Arts and Crafts, Henry discovered with a new, sick lurch that Marjorie had disappeared. Not even her jacket remained.
Panic swept him. He must find her. He stumbled towards reception, staring wildly to left and right, almost succumbing to the urge to call her name. Where had she gone? Out into the snow? Back to the Reference Room? He mustn’t lose her; he couldn’t bear it.
Thank goodness – he sagged with relief – here she was, along this little dead-end beside the exit, lifting the lid of the photocopying machine.
He must stop dithering. He would do it. He smoothed his hair, took a deep breath, willed himself to approach and speak.
Elena
Beneath the lid there was a ragged sheet of paper, left by the previous user. She yanked it out and placed Twentieth Century Scottish Heroes face down on the glass. She posted coins into the slot, punched the green button and stood back. As the machine began to trundle through its cycle of flash and slide, she glanced at the paper in her hand. It looked like poetry, shakily hand-written in a language she did not know. Her professional eye skimmed, seeking some word or phrase that might give a clue to meaning.
‘Ay!’
She dropped it in shock, then fell to her knees and stared. Yes. She had made no error. At the foot of this dog-eared page, the writer had signed his name.
Angus Urquhart!
Peter
A bunny in a beam.
Henry
Creeping up on Marjorie Macpherson.
Elena
On her knees.
There was a moment of mutual stillness in which, quite suddenly, the lights went out.
Chapter Eight
Elena
She remained absolutely still, struggling to make sense of the double shock – the signature on the paper and the dramatic darkness – shock that was fast turning to fear. Her skin felt electric, as though at any moment her enemy would reach from the blackness and lay his hand on hers. She swallowed a cry and struggled to her feet, bumping against the photocopier. The dark was absolute. It pressed on her eyes like a cushion. Yet through it she felt watched.
Someone had been nearby, she realised. Behind and to the left while she sat reading she had heard a quiet cough. Then someone approaching as she was photocopying. And yes, with a shiver she remembered, the glass of the photocopier still hot when she raised the lid. Was she in pursuit of Urquhart, or was he the hunter, luring her in like a moth to a web?
But how? No one but she had heard Aunt Marisa’s last whisper. No one had watched as she pulled the lace cocoon from the linen-drawer and wept over its yellowing contents. How could el malo know that Carlos’s granddaughter would come in search of him after sixty-three years? To this library, tonight? Such knowledge was impossible.
Queda tranquila. He could not know she was here. She was the hunter, he the prey. There was no trap. The blizzard had cut off the electricity. Pure chance had put this paper in her hand. She would be strong. She would find the librarian and question her again. Elena let herself exhale, then drew slow breaths, relaxing her shoulders, reassuring herself there was nothing to fear. Out in reception, she could hear subdued voices and see a flickering point of light. People were doing something to end the darkness. There was little point in moving, she decided. She would stay here, safe beside the photocopier, breathing in, breathing out, rebuilding her courage.
Peter
He remained absolutely still, struggling with the afterimage of the librarian’s eyes. The memory of them glowed through the shroud of darkness, whose arrival seemed natural, like mercy from the devil, the only possible escape from the unnerving power of that smile, that steady gaze heading his way, compulsive and terrible like . . . like what? Words wouldn’t come. Not sexual, not censorious.
Where was she? Shrink against wall, scour the silence with his ears. Not a sound. No breath, no footfall. Had darkness wiped all trace, gathered her up like ectoplasm? Was she a ghost, a shadow cast by Calum Calum, dead as the world believed him, gone beyond grave to purgatory, to scratch out his transcendent poems on a blood-spattered desk three below Keats and one along from poor Kit Marlowe?
The reward will surprise you. FU.
FU! Of course, right in front of him. Too hungry, too engrossed in Gaelic, too jumpy altogether. F fucking U. Fiona Urquhart, stake his soul on it, same name as on the poem. Calum Calum alias Angus Urquhart, ask at the library, Fiona.
Niece? Granddaughter? Cousin twice removed? Could these be Calum’s eyes he’d seen, could still see, strong, omniscient, lighting his way forward? No wonder he was mesmerised. Calum’s genius in her genes, the walking echo of a man whose face was hidden from the world. No trick, no con; she meant to bring him straight to Calum, and Calum straight to him. Bards of the old and new
millennia, bound together by mutual awe.
Speak her name. ‘Fiona?’ Was she still here in the blacked-out corridor, waiting for dawn to break in his head? Inch his way along the wall, whispering, ‘Fiona? Are you there?’
Henry
He remained absolutely still, struggling with indecision.
He’d opened his mouth, the words were there, he would have spoken them. Hello, Marjorie. I’m Henry Jennings. But then, alarmingly, she’d cried out and fallen to her knees.
He’d wanted to rush to her aid, he’d taken the first step, when, damn and blast, the lights had failed.
What to do? Grope his way forward with the offer of an anonymous tweed-clad arm? Oh, and by the way, I’m Henry Jennings.
It wouldn’t do. Stranger writes love-letters, won’t take silence for an answer, then leaps from the dark to offer help? No. Retreat and regroup, that was the thing. He turned and swam in the approximate direction of the librarian’s desk, burrowing ahead with his hands.
Then, he remembered. Of course, he had a torch!
Proper little boy scout.
He’d bought it a while ago on a whim. ‘The slimmest in the world’ it was billed, stacked with its fellows on a shop-counter like a tower of After Eights. Idly curious, he’d picked one off the pile. With not a clue how to make it work, he’d tried squeezing it between finger and thumb and, click, there was light. A fierce little ray from a minuscule bulb on one edge. He’d had to have the thing. He had it now, in his breast pocket. Click and there was light.
‘Oh, thank goodness.’
The librarian. He swung the fragile beam in search of her. She was no more than two yards away, but the torch illuminated only a few square inches at a time. Her kind smile, and then her eyes, large and serious, searching the darkness to know who he was. He swivelled the torch to his own face and cleared his throat.
‘Do you need help?’
‘Yes, thank you. Please,’ her disembodied voice, ‘it may be a power line down, but there’s a chance it’s only the fuses. I’ve seen them in a cupboard out back. And candles too. If you could light my way?’
‘Of course.’
Damn. Damn. DAMN! It meant leaving Marjorie. But how could he refuse? The librarian stumbled against him. She took hold of his sleeve, redirecting the torch, then edged away towards the bookshelves, following the dancing Tinkerbell beam. He went with her reluctantly, twisting his neck to stare behind, straining to see. The only discernible shape was a faint grey ladder of light, window onto the snowbound world. There, unguarded, lay the exit, through which, at any moment, Marjorie would slip away, into her forever separate life. He groaned.
‘Are you all right?’ said the librarian.
‘Yes.’
They had threaded their way through the bookshelves to the back wall of the lending room. The needle of light was discovering the jamb and handle of another door, Staff Only. The librarian opened it and led him inside.
Chapter Nine
Elena
The returning light restored her confidence. The shock of the signature on this stray bit of paper had passed. Now it seemed a gift, proof that the spirits of her mother and aunt were guiding her. The poetry was in Gaelic, she decided, the ancient language of Britain’s Celtic fringes. She photocopied it, along with pages from Twentieth Century Scottish Heroes, then took time to squeeze every drop of meaning from it.
Though the language was unintelligible, the handwriting, blue from the nib of a fountain-pen, was eloquent. A tremor marred the antiquated script; el malo was less strong than his photograph pretended. Yet defiance remained, a pressure on the page and a filling of it from side to side that allowed no contradiction. I am powerful and decisive. See what I can do. Here was a man still mighty in his own eyes.
Only the final line – Mar sin leibh – and the signature faltered. Less weight, less character, and the last few letters – a-r-t– a timid mark. There was pride in the writing, but not in the name.
‘I will shame you,’ she whispered again.
She folded the photocopies into her bag, then picked up her jacket and returned to the librarian’s desk. No one was here except the young man with whom she kept colliding, the one whose eyes mirrored her emotions. Now he looked determined. She nodded, and he nodded. ‘Have you seen the librarian?’ he said.
‘No. I wish to find her also.’
‘You try that way. I’ll cover the Reference Room.’ He vanished through the door beside the librarian’s desk.
Elena wandered back into the lending room. She replaced Twentieth Century Scottish Heroes on the shelf, then stretched up on her toes to see beyond the bookcases. Nothing moved. But then, yes, a door was opening in the back wall and through it were coming two people. The librarian, and a man with a brown coat over his arm and an expression of great anxiety.
Henry
‘No, really. Not at all.’
The librarian was thanking him, but Henry couldn’t concentrate. He wished he could – he must seem rude – but he was gripped by his need to find Marjorie. The librarian was intolerably relaxed, while his feet fidgeted and his mouth stammered platitudes. Slowly, too slowly, they were making their way towards reception.
Then his heart leapt. The jolt in his chest spread outwards in an exquisite flood. Marjorie hadn’t abandoned him in the dark. She was here, heading straight towards him, holding a piece of paper. ‘Please, you excuse me. You know what this is?’
The paper flapped under Henry’s nose. ‘Marjorie?’ he said.
She took no notice. She was looking at the librarian. ‘I find it in the photocopier.’
Adrenaline rebounded on him like a hose-jet from a wall. This wasn’t Marjorie. The woman had only rudimentary English, some kind of foreign accent. It absolutely wasn’t her.
The librarian seized the paper. ‘I don’t believe this!’
‘Neither do I,’ he said fiercely. He made a point of never losing his temper, but he could feel it slipping.
‘Please. What do you not believe?’ She was still ignoring him, this woman who wasn’t Marjorie. Addressing her questions to the suddenly incensed librarian. ‘Why are you angry? Tell me, is Mr Urquhart here?’
Two angry women, both ignoring him, neither of them Marjorie. Where the hell was Marjorie?
‘That young man!’ The librarian spun round, looking. ‘He must be Peter. How unbelievably careless!’
She had to mean his brother. Henry’s head was churning. Nothing was making sense.
The woman who wasn’t Marjorie showed no more interest in Peter than in Henry. ‘Urquhart,’ she repeated. ‘The man who signs this. He is here?’
‘No! I’ve told you, no.’ The librarian was growing more hopping mad by the second. ‘How could he? It’s so precious.’
Nothing was clear except, surprise, surprise, Peter had messed up. Henry exploded. ‘Marjorie,’ he demanded. ‘Where’s Marjorie Macpherson?’
The librarian took no notice. She was marching off with the paper clutched to her bosom and the foreign impostor hard on her heels.
‘MARJORIE MACPHERSON,’ he yelled after them. Then stared wildly around, in the desperate hope that Marjorie would hear and come running. She had to be somewhere in this impossible place. Hidden around a corner, wearing, not a sharp black suit, but a long red skirt and tartan sash, with golden buckles on her shoes and a halo of bright hair.
His bellow brought the librarian to a halt. She turned to face him, frowning. ‘The workshop, you mean? They’re still there, I expect.’ She pointed. ‘The Reference Room. Along the corridor.’
‘NO!!!!!!’
‘No?’ She blinked at his rudeness.
‘No,’ he said despairingly. ‘She isn’t there.’
‘Who isn’t?’
‘MARJORIE isn’t.’
‘Marjorie?’ said the librarian.
Was the woman obstructive or stupid? He could hear himself shouting. ‘YES, DAMN IT. MARJORIE. THE WRITER. THE WORKSHOP. MARJORIE MACPHERSON. WHERE IS SHE?’
‘Hold on. What are you talking about? Where’s Marjorie?’
The librarian came nearer. She had an intense, earnest expression. Her voice was filtering through the tumult in his head. ‘Michael McCoy,’ she was saying. ‘Women used to write as men, but more often these days it’s the other way around.’
‘What?’ He couldn’t understand. He couldn’t be hearing right. ‘What are you saying?’
‘The writer. His name is Michael McCoy.’
The truth slammed into him. He let out a long, low moan.
‘I’m so sorry.’ The librarian had her hand on his arm. There was a look of pity in her eyes. She knew.
Somewhere nearby, beyond the librarian’s intolerable kindness, Henry heard the foreign impostor laugh. She knew too.
Chapter Ten
Elena
Her laughter was unforgivable; she immediately repented it. She was tense, hysterical perhaps, but nothing could excuse such rudeness. There was no remedy – to say more would make things worse. The unfortunate man, white with shock, was backing away among the bookcases despite the librarian’s efforts to guide him to a chair.
‘I’m fine. No. Fine. Leave me alone, won’t you?’
He was panting. He looked as though he might faint. But he threw the librarian’s hand from his arm with such violence that she had to concede. Then he turned and almost ran, between the bookcases, disappearing among them.
Elena stood side by side with the librarian, staring after him. She hated herself. ‘It is wrong to laugh. Unkind. I do not mean – ’
‘Of course you don’t,’ said the librarian.
There was no censure in her voice. Elena felt absolved as by twenty Ave Marias. For a blessed moment she was free of anger.
Love, Revenge & Buttered Scones Page 6