‘And he doesn’t come back?’
In the soft, pink light, the stranger’s eyes as he leant towards Elena were swimming. Cognac tears, showing his own grief as much as hers. But genuine. Of this much she was sure.
‘No, he does not return. First they believe him dead. Or captured by Franco.’
‘But he isn’t?’
‘No. Word come. He is elsewhere in the Sierra. He take our money, but he bring no guns.’
‘But that’s dreadful. Wicked. Your village was in danger.’
‘Yes. The front, it hold for many months. But who can say when Franco will break through? And my grandfather, he is the alcalde.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The leader. The principal socialist. A farmer, but they elect him alcalde.’
‘The mayor?’
‘Yes.’
‘So he felt responsible?’
‘He is responsible. He give Urquhart bed and food. He call him brother. Make him a friend of the village. Hand him their money.’
‘But how do you know this?’
‘My aunt, Marisa. In November – this last November – she die. And as she die she tell me. She show me.’
Sobs overwhelmed Elena. She struggled to stifle them, expecting the man to leave his seat, to touch her. But he did not. He splashed more cognac into her glass on the low table and waited for her tears to stop. When they did, she picked up the glass and smiled at him, this good, kind man. ‘Thank you, Henry.’
‘So tell me. Your aunt. What did she show you?’
‘Papers.’
‘Papers?’
‘A message from the traitor to my grandfather. A postcard with four words. Trust me, Carlos. Urquhart.’ She took a sip of the cognac and closed her eyes. ‘And a diary.’ The cognac numbed her mouth and nose, blocking the tears. ‘My mother’s diary.’
‘A diary she wrote in nineteen-thirty-seven?’
‘Yes. She was seven years old.’
‘That’s young to write a diary.’
‘She has no one to tell her feelings. Only Marisa, two years younger.’
‘What about her own mother? Your grandmother?’
‘She died before. And afterwards, no one speak or smile. So many dead, and only my mother and Marisa to hold the blame.’
Her anger grew. It gave her strength, she realised, to speak this pain aloud.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened? What your mother wrote in her diary?’
‘Yes.’ She took another sip of cognac. ‘It was February. Like here it is cold in February in the Sierra. For months nothing, then all at once Malaga fall. Franco’s army, they come with guns. They kill the men. The boys also. My mother’s cousins and her playmates. They shoot them in the square. Between the stones of the square the blood, it lie in charcos. Puddles.’
She bit her lip and stared for a moment at her glass. ‘November, I am there. We take Marisa’s body to the graveyard. There is no blood now. The stones are white.’
Her voice was sounding strange to her. Flat and cold, like the stones.
‘So. Franco’s men, they shot your grandfather?’
‘No, they did not shoot him. He is away. Seeking Urquhart.’
She hid her face in her hands. She was following Marisa’s coffin again, over the white stones, past the well. She was turning her head to look into the well. The pulley and rope hung loose, stirring in the cruel November wind. Only in her dream did the rope strain at the knot on the iron ring, and stretch taut as a guitar-string into the blackness.
‘He hang himself.’
Chapter Fifteen
Henry
He was back under the frozen stars, striding coatless towards the Royal Highland Hotel, no need of the tartan blanket under his arm, powered by brandy and by the conviction that things were looking up.
Thank you, Henry.
Her eyes in that moment had shone so dark, the pupils dilated and bright with tears. A real woman confirming his humanity. And when her story was done, and his, and it came time to leave, again she bestowed her trustful gaze, so even as he spoke he knew she would say yes.
‘Forgive me, I realise you’re an independent person, more than capable of looking after yourself. But if you would like, if you would like company? I have to be back in Guildford by Monday. My neighbour, Trevor, I’ve promised him. But tomorrow’s no problem. We could meet up, I could come with you.’
‘Yes, Henry. You have so much kindness. I would like this. Also Fiona, the librarian, she is not wanting to invite me. But you please her, you help with the light. Perhaps she will be more happy if you come.’
Her voice made him shiver. It was so deep, so substantial.
Elena Martínez. He let the name form in his mouth, hearing her speak it – ‘Elena Martíneth’ – with her lovely, lisping, Spanish zed. Tomorrow he would see her again.
Peter would be there. A pang shot through him. He nearly missed his footing in the snow, remembering her words. ‘Your brother? The young man with the blue eyes, so expressive?’
Damn his brother’s blue eyes. Plus he would have to suffer Peter’s derision over Marjorie. The librarian would show she knew him; it would all come out. Though maybe not. She was good-hearted, he sensed. If he dived in fast, turned the spotlight onto little brother, maybe she would take the hint. ‘Good heavens, Peter,’ he would say, ‘We must have missed each other by inches. So how come you’re in bonnie Scotland?’
Elena had thrown no light on the conundrum. Peter was keen to meet this Urquhart character too, apparently. Something about the poem in the photocopier. Peter was always banging on about poetry, usually to some unsuspecting lass. Don’t be fooled by the blue eyes, Elena. The young man has a cold heart.
Henry’s buoyancy persisted. It was his eyes, not Peter’s, that Elena was looking into. He’d damn well show his brother he wasn’t a write-off.
Steady on there. Slow down. Elena was in need of a friend, that was all. He mustn’t presume, and he certainly mustn’t imagine. He’d done more than enough fantasising to last a lifetime. He would stick to reality from now on, nothing but reality. It was all there was, and it was what he would deal with.
Here was the station square and the welcoming portal of the Royal Highland Hotel. Brandy and reality marched him smoothly towards it. Goodnight, ladies. It was all he needed to say as he swept through the foyer and up the stairs. Goodnight, ladies. Michael McCoy could think what he liked. Marjorie Macpherson wasn’t real and Michael McCoy didn’t bloody matter.
He was almost disappointed to find the foyer deserted. Only the charming receptionist remained, dismantling the circle of chairs and returning them one by one to their places.
‘Good evening, sir. Is there anything I can get you?’
He needed to sober up. He needed to be as good as he could be tomorrow. Not a romantic hero, no, not at all. Just as good as he could be.
‘Yes, please. A bottle of Highland spring water, flat not fizzy, in my room. Would that be possible?’
‘Of course, sir. Yes. At once.’
Elena
Sleep refused to come. Her brain bubbled with cognac and new resolve. Confessing to Henry had eased her guilt and confusion.
Wicked. That was his word. She was not mad. She was not alone. Urquhart, el malo, Henry had affirmed it.
She sat up, switched on the bedside light and pulled from her bag the pages she had photocopied. Here was the traitor’s photograph, reproduced in shades of grey. Eighty years old, upright and proud, smiling the same self-satisfied smile as his daughter. But in his eyes she could see it – the lack of confidence she had perceived in his signature. Here stood a man who knew he was a fake.
She propped her head with pillows and began to read, more carefully than before.
Angus Urquhart was born in Inverness-shire in 1916 into a family of crofters. Wayward and foolhardy from an early age, he liked nothing better than to disappear into the mountains for days at a time carrying little more than survival rations. At
school he astonished his teachers with his first-class brain and with their encouragement applied for and won a scholarship to Trinity College Cambridge. It was here he met the lazy, charming David Stirling, who was later to found the Special Air Service (SAS).
Elena had heard of this British SAS. They appeared from nowhere, swinging on ropes to dive, feet-first like James Bond, through embassy windows. They shot terrorists and rescued hostages.
Stirling and Urquhart were frequent companions, renowned less for scholarship than for drinking and gambling, and also for style: each six-foot five-inches tall and immaculately got up. Urquhart was never to be seen other than resplendent in dress kilt and glengarry, which he wore stubbornly throughout the war, disdaining disguise on even the most dangerous missions behind the lines.
So her mother’s diary had described him. A gigantic man, full of wine and laughter, whose pleated skirt flew out when he threw little Marisa in the air and spun to catch her.
In 1941 Churchill agreed the establishment of the SAS despite the inertia of high command, who pooh-poohed it as a meddlesome suicide squad. The generals shrugged their shoulders. If it worked, fine. If it didn’t, it hardly mattered. A ragbag outfit that attracted the mavericks and misfits who wouldn’t take orders. At least in the SAS they risked only their own necks, and with luck they might confuse the enemy in the process.
Angus Urquhart was the ideal recruit. Aged 21, while Stirling set off to attempt Mount Everest, Urquhart graduated straight from Cambridge to gunrunning for the Republicans in Spain, mastering the high passes of the Sierra Nevada as readily as those of his native Scotland. Alas, his efforts were in vain. Franco’s forces prevailed and Urquhart found himself eyewitness to the fall of Malaga. Evading capture, he returned to Britain, where before long the outbreak of the Second World War offered a new arena for his restless energy.
Elena spluttered with rage. She could not read on. Was this all they could find to say of events that had ruined her life? Restless energy? Alas? In Spain Urquhart had risked more than his own neck. In Spain he had done more than confuse the enemy. Alas, her village massacred! Alas, her grandfather’s neck broken in a well! Alas, his daughters cast to the mercy of embittered widows and vengeful priests!
She flung the pages violently to the floor. The sobs were rising again. She clenched her fists, switched off the light, stuffed the pillow into her mouth and howled.
Peter
A’ bhliadhna seo thàinig geamhradh fuar agus móran sneachda,
There came one year cold winter and much snow,
le cur is cathadh.
with fall and drift.
Alone now, warm and fed beneath duvet, nothing keeping him from Calum but haze of sleep, soup, bread and whisky – and Gaelic, never as easy on the page as in the melodious air back then, singsonged by Ma while Pa away. All these lenitions, slenderisations, epenthetic vowels, pre-aspirations and hiatuses, insinuating themselves between spelling, sound and meaning. But mustn’t weaken, must plough on from page to dictionary to page, push himself forward.
For tomorrow, they would meet. Muse and disciple, mislaid and undiscovered, revered and soon to be acclaimed, Calum Calum and Peter Jennings, poets and heroes of the past and future.
Calum’s stamp on every stanza; frank to the ear, but thread soon lost in allegory. Some dame in plot: sultry eyes, splendid tits, definite hit in the sack. Won and lost, found and lost again, coming and going like nobody’s business. Sometimes a ghost, more often X-rated real. Good old Calum, no holds barred, Gaelic answer to Henry Miller when that way inclined.
Plus line after line of unrelenting cold. No escape but in those eyes, between those palpable tits, and when dame gone or ghostlike no escape at all, cold as an Inverness bus-shelter.
And honour, honour, honour lost. Lost and never found. Searched for in the bowels of hell. Glimpsed – Tha e agam fhathast – I have it still – and lost again.
Sleep, soup, bread and whisky, dream of hot, dark holds. Mind losing grip, hand on prick, dictionary thump on floor. And anyway he couldn’t finish it tonight cos, fuck it, bossy wee Fiona, great eyes, and tits acceptable though not a patch on Calum’s ladylove, yes sweet, sad Fiona – did she have a man? where was he? – still had final page.
Henry
Straight-backed, dry-eyed, and anaesthetised by brandy, Henry sat on the edge of his bed in the Royal Highland Hotel and allowed himself to think about Michael McCoy. His mind touched the subject gingerly at first, like a wet finger to the surface of an iron, but gradually his fear eased.
He was alone. His mother wasn’t here. There was no one here but him.
Beside him, beneath the bedside lamp, gleamed the green and gold cover of ‘Heart of the Glen’. He’d been contemplating it a while, daring it to speak. From time to time he was on the verge of speaking himself, moved to interrogate it, to demand answers. But he stopped himself each time, renewing his vow to give up imaginary conversations. With Marjorie, with his mother, with the fates, with God. Reality was all there was. He must confront it head on.
He took stock of himself. He was a forty-one-year-old financial adviser, somewhat overweight, wearing blue-striped pyjamas he had ironed himself – how sad was that? – and sitting, altogether alone, on an anonymous hotel bed. The world wouldn’t so much as blink if he were to leave it. Only Peter would grumble at the chore of having to dispose of his corpse as the price of inheriting Pa’s money at last.
Before tonight, such thoughts had had him quivering with self-pity, but now somehow they did not. Had public humiliation numbed him? Was he building new fantasies around Elena? Was he still in shock? He didn’t know, and yet he grew in self-esteem. Alone and crisply pyjama’d in the Royal Highland Hotel, he faced facts as squarely as he could manage, and self-pity missed its cue.
Still he gazed at ‘Heart of the Glen’. Three-hundred-and-odd pages of bulk-produced paperback, his place marked with a dark-pink envelope addressed in a strong italic hand. He didn’t need to open the envelope. He knew the words by heart.
SHAPING THE STORY. Spend three hours with Marjorie Macpherson and discover her secrets.
It was exactly as he’d thought. A personal invitation from the author. You say you love me, Henry? Whoever and whatever I am? OK. Come to Inverness, and I will show you who and what.
Cruelty or kindness? He couldn’t decide. Cruel it felt, cruelty he suspected, but another possibility was nagging at his mind. Were you wanting to join us? How politely Michael McCoy had greeted him. With Marjorie Macpherson’s smile, as shyly welcoming as in his dreams. At last we meet. How good to see you. So, Henry Jennings, now you see me, who I am, now what do you say?
Henry let his hand move. He picked the book up and opened it at the marked page. Put the envelope aside on the bed and began to read.
Through the last night he stayed with her, Maggie lay awake and watched Fergus sleep. At rest, his face wore a smile that invited kisses, but she did not kiss or touch. Sometimes the smile deepened, while his eyes trembled beneath their lids and the muscles in his limbs twitched. Happy dreams visited him, private visions of peace and light. Maggie’s heart near burst with love and grief. Then, for long hours, he slumbered more profoundly, motionless save for the drawing and release of the breath that kept him alive, kept the heat and smell of his sweat spreading through the bed towards her. With each breath his chin was drawn chestwards and the blanket rose with his ribcage. Then, as he let go, the blanket subsided and his head relaxed. For a fragile moment he was completely still, empty of air, and effort, and life. Then came the next breath, each one a return from the dead. Two days ago, had he died, she would have mourned him beautifully, believing in his love for the rest of her life. Widowhood was kinder by far than this. But it was too late. And she did not wish him dead. Fergus had the right to live, to withdraw his love from her and bestow it on another.
Towards morning, her husband’s sleep became fitful. At any moment his eyes would open and meet hers. She could not bear to witness his awakening,
to see his smile freeze at the sight of her whom once he had claimed as his own and only Maggie McConn. She slid silently from the bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen, across the cold stone flags. She pulled on wellingtons, threw an overcoat over her nightgown, lifted the latch and stepped into the dew-hung garden and the mocking welcome of the dawn chorus.
There was no more to do, there were no more words to speak. Her own and only Fergus was lost. Knee-deep in the wet grass beneath the apple tree, she gazed clear-eyed, up at the purple mountain. She began to let him go.
Henry sighed. Despite everything, the ghost of Marjorie Macpherson still had power to move him.
Cold turkey, he promised himself; he would read no more of her. Not now. Not ever. When he got home he would take the whole lot to a charity shop. He snapped the book shut, picked up the envelope, strode across the room and stuffed both into his bag.
She began to let him go.
She. Him. It hadn’t struck him before, but the love object in these books of Marjorie’s, wasn’t it always a man?
He cast his mind back. Yes, invariably it was Maggie McConn, or her daughter, her mother, her girlhood friend, who was in love. Scarcely surprising from the pen of a woman. But Marjorie Macpherson was not a woman.
Was this the answer to the riddle? Had Marjorie refused him? Or was he refusing – dared he think it – Michael?
One more time he opened the door of the Reference Room. The shy smile of a bald man hung in the air before him. Were you wanting to join us?
‘I’m sorry.’ Henry forgot his vow and spoke aloud. ‘I’m truly, truly sorry.’
He paused, remembering his admiration for whoever wrote these books. He tried his best to return the smile. ‘I’m sorry, but no can do.’
Chapter Sixteen
Elena
Just after eight-thirty the next morning, wretched from lack of sleep, Elena put on Henry Jennings’ coat, settled her bill, and, escaping the proprietor’s intrusive smiles, stepped from his gloomy hallway into a world so white it made her eyes water.
Love, Revenge & Buttered Scones Page 9