‘Great stuff – let’s find a time to go up there and take a look at it, at least.’ Mick seemed relieved. He glanced at his watch. ‘Half an hour, then. Shouldn’t take you more than that.’
He pulled away with a cheerful toot of his horn and Zoe crossed the street towards the grocery store. The food would be basic here, she suspected, none of the fancy stuff she liked from Whole Foods or the Thai grocer, but that was OK. She had little interest these days in cooking. There had been a time, when she and Dan had first moved in together and the idea of their first home was new and felt like a game, when she had liked to experiment with food. Dan was an enthusiastic cook; they had learned together. But lately, the business of making a family meal had come to feel like a thankless chore, an increasingly hollow pretence at normality, the time and effort expended so disproportionate to the end result, which was only ever bolted down so that everyone could return as quickly as possible to their separate rooms. Here she planned to live simply, to eat only things that required minimal effort. Cold meat, cheese, salad, bread, breakfast cereals. Coffee, maybe even cigarettes. The way she’d lived when she was at art school, and was so driven by her work that it was too important to interrupt for anything as trivial as eating. She wanted to recapture that kind of absorption, see if she was still capable of losing herself like that in the work. That’s why it was good there was no phone signal and no Wi-Fi at the house, she thought. No Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram. No distractions. Not that she had felt like sharing much in recent months anyway. She couldn’t bear to look at the news, and she only ever looked at her friends’ lives now with a twist of envy below her ribs and a feeling of exclusion, occasionally an unforgivable wish – there and gone in an instant – that some misfortune would slam into their apparently perfect lives. These thoughts quickly warped into self-loathing; she did not wish harm to her friends, how could she? And yet she could not help resenting them either, for their insularity, their self-satisfaction. For some time she had felt it might be easier to disengage entirely. In a flash of what had seemed at the time like boldness, she had deleted her Facebook and Instagram accounts before she left. She wanted to concentrate on being here, not clinging on remotely to the shreds of a life back home or worrying about how to curate her experience for other people’s approval. She was already starting to regret the decision.
A warm gust of air caught her as she walked past an open shop door, a scent of bread and vanilla, and she realised with a twinge that she had not eaten breakfast. In the window beside her, rustic loaves fanned out in baskets and pastries glistened wantonly on silver tiered cake-stands. A painted sign swung above the door, proclaiming Maggie’s Granary in curlicued script. A cinnamon bun from Maggie’s, Charles Joseph had said: the price of his stories. She hesitated on the threshold. If anyone in this place was likely to tell her the truth about the house, it would be the Professor.
4
The door of C. Joseph, Rare & Second-hand Books produced a sonorous chime as she pushed it open to enter an atmosphere of rarefied, eccentric chaos. The interior was done up like a gentleman’s library from the last century, or the bar at a fancy country club, without trying so hard: all mahogany panelling and scuffed wine-dark leather winged chairs, books stacked floor to ceiling along every wall and piled in precarious towers in corners. It smelled reassuringly of tobacco and old paper.
‘Give me a minute,’ called a voice from somewhere at the back of the shop. Zoe peered around a bookcase to see the old Labrador padding towards her, nose quivering towards the paper bag in her hand.
‘Hey, Horace,’ she said, reaching down to scratch him behind the ears. When she looked up, Charles Joseph was standing in front of her, hands clasped together.
‘She remembered the buns, Horace,’ he remarked to the dog, with solemn pleasure. ‘I told you she would. Your timing is impeccable, Ms Adams – I’ve just put a fresh pot of coffee on. Come through to the back.’
He led her past a wooden desk with a cash register and through an arched doorway into a smaller room. This, too, was lined with bookshelves along the walls, but the central space had been left for a couple of shabby armchairs and a wide desk that looked like an antique. In one corner a jumble of coloured beanbags and cushions sprawled across the floor.
‘I call this the Reading Room,’ he said, with a sweeping gesture. ‘Rather grand, I know. But sometimes people like to have a quiet place to sit down with a book while they’re in town. Some of the youngsters come here to study at the weekends, if they can’t get any peace at home. People drop by in their lunch hour and the children like to stop off on their way home from school. I’m always pleased to have company.’ He waved towards the coloured cushions.
‘You’re better than a public library,’ Zoe said, smiling. The old man’s face grew serious.
‘I’m afraid that’s more or less true. They closed our library down a couple of years ago. Someone on the mainland decided it wasn’t financially viable. I’m all the islanders have now.’ He lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘That’s why I give away so many books, though our young friend Edward despairs at my business sense.’
‘And you don’t …’ she hesitated, searching for the right way to phrase it ‘… worry about the money?’
Charles gave an indulgent chuckle. ‘My dear girl, I worry about it all the time. But I’ve been fortunate. I wrote a number of books when I was younger that enjoyed some success. I invested wisely, and that’s given me an income over the years. And I dabble in rare books – now and then I come across an item of more than average value, and that keeps us afloat, with what I make from the maps and walking guides. So I can more or less afford to allow my charitable instincts to get the better of my commercial ones.’
‘What kind of books did you write?’
‘Oh, studies of myths. That was my field. There’s bound to be one around somewhere.’ He poked about on a nearby shelf, running his finger along dusty spines until he pulled out a fat volume in a transparent plastic cover and handed it to Zoe. The Myths That Make Us by Dr Charles M. Joseph. The dust-jacket featured a reproduction of Rubens’ Saturn Devouring His Son.
‘Is it history?’ she asked, turning the book over to look at the back cover.
He tilted his head. ‘Partly. History, anthropology, psychology, literature, art, travel – there’s a bit of everything in mythography. This one found its way on to various university syllabuses over the years – that’s why it’s still in print.’
The inside cover showed a black-and-white photograph of the author in a tweed jacket much like the one he was currently wearing, his eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled into the camera. He didn’t look a whole lot younger than he did now, Zoe thought, yet this book was clearly published in the last century. She turned to the inside flyleaf to find that it was dated 1975. Charles caught her looking at him and smiled.
‘I was born middle-aged,’ he said. ‘Now then – take a seat while I find a plate for those buns. Milk and sugar?’ He disappeared into a small kitchen through the back. Zoe could hear the chinking of crockery and the hiss of steam.
‘Neither, thanks.’ She sank back into one of the armchairs, the book in her lap, and flicked through a few pages, her eyes lingering over the lavish illustrated plates – reproductions of paintings, sculptures and maps.
‘Take it home if you like,’ Charles said, setting down a mug of coffee on a table he pulled up between them. She handed him the paper bag and he settled into the other armchair, elbows jutting out and hands folded together, watching her. ‘What did you want to ask me, then?’
‘Oh.’ She looked up, startled. ‘I was interested in finding out a bit more about the local history. Since I’m going to be living here for a bit.’
He continued to look at her. ‘Naturally. But I think you wanted to ask something in particular?’
‘What’s the story with the house?’ she blurted. ‘The one Mick and Kaye don’t want me to hear?’
‘Ah.’ He picke
d up his bun and took a large bite, leaving the question hanging while he chewed it, nodding several times in appreciation. Zoe wondered if he would make her wait until he had finished the entire thing, but when his mouth was empty he glanced towards the doorway. ‘Mick’s put a great deal of time and money into doing up that old place. Love, too, in a sense. It was important to him to redeem it. The house had been left to ruin when his father died – perhaps when you’re more settled you can get him to show you the photos. What he’s done there is extraordinary.’
‘Redeem it from what?’
‘From its history. You’re their first tenant, you know. They’d only had the website live two days when you emailed him, he said, and he was fretting that he might not find anyone at all over the winter. So you were a bit of a godsend – you can understand why they don’t want the locals putting you off the place with lurid tales. Especially a woman on her own.’
Zoe gave him a stern look. ‘I’m interested in the tales. I think I’m old enough to tell fact from fiction.’
He met this with an enigmatic smile. ‘Well. I wonder if any of us can really claim to know that.’
There was an odd pause while Zoe tried to judge whether or not he was serious. ‘So – it’s supposed to be haunted, right?’ She made the question sound deliberately sarcastic, but as she spoke she recalled the chill she had felt on the stairs, the plaintive tone of the woman singing. But that had been the whisky and jet lag. No point in telling him about that.
Charles picked up his coffee and leaned forward. ‘Are you sure you want to hear this story? Only, one can’t unknow things, you see, and there’s a world of difference between hearing it here, all cosy over buns, and remembering it later, after dark, alone in that big house.’
‘You’re doing it too, now. I’m not a child, Dr Joseph.’
‘I apologise.’ He nodded, smiling, but there was a trace of resignation in his tone, as if what she was demanding were an unpleasant but necessary cure.
‘Well, then.’ He set his cup down and eased back in his chair, steepling his fingers. ‘Tamhas McBride owned this island in the mid nineteenth century, though he never lived here until he married Ailsa Drummond in 1861. She was the eldest child and only daughter of the Reverend Teàrlach Drummond, great-great-great-grandfather to our Mick, who was then minister of the island’s kirk. The reverend was widowed and Ailsa refused to abandon him on the island after her marriage, so her new husband had a grand house built overlooking the bay on the northern coast. To say the McBrides were not liked here would be an understatement. Tamhas’s father had been a Glasgow industrialist who bought the island in the 1830s when the laird went bankrupt – it happened all over this part of Scotland. His first act as landlord was to send sixty of the inhabitants to Nova Scotia.’
‘Jesus. What, like a punishment?’
‘He claimed the island was over-populated. “Assisted voluntary emigration”, they called it. Nothing voluntary about it, of course – it was eviction by another name, and the rest were supposed to be grateful they were allowed to stay. Some islands were cleared altogether.’ He paused to shake his head. ‘So the McBrides were not well-loved, as you can imagine, though Tamhas was less interfering as a landlord than his father. He was getting on for fifty by the time he married Ailsa – his first wife had died in childbirth, along with the baby. Ailsa was thirty-four – her family had given up any hope of her marrying, so to find such a prestigious husband was seen as a blessing, despite his name. The islanders must have hoped Ailsa would be their advocate.’ He paused for a longing look at his bun. Zoe grinned and nodded her permission. Now that he had agreed to talk, she was willing to indulge him.
‘Tamhas McBride travelled a lot on business, leaving his wife at home,’ Charles continued with his mouth full, brushing sugar from his beard. ‘But she seemed contented enough out there in her big house, according to the letters she sent her younger brother.’
‘That would be Mick’s great-great …’ she paused, trying to calculate.
‘Great-great-grandfather, that’s right. William Drummond. He was ten years younger than his sister and studying theology in Edinburgh – he was intended for the kirk, like his father. William and Ailsa corresponded regularly. Everyone assumed there would soon be a McBride heir and that would keep Ailsa occupied. But they had been married less than a year when Tamhas was drowned. He was on board a ship that went down during a storm in the Atlantic, all hands lost. On his way back from America, as it happens.’ He added this with an encouraging nod, as if it would give her some sense of participation in the story.
‘And he haunts the place?’ She tried to sound light, but it came out nervous and over-excited. Charles chuckled, as you might humour a child.
‘I’ve never heard of Tamhas giving anyone any trouble from beyond the grave.’
‘Then …?’ Zoe found she was gripping her mug tighter.
He uncrossed his legs, leaned back in his chair and recrossed them the other way around.
‘Tamhas McBride’s death was only the beginning. After she was widowed, Ailsa became reclusive. She dismissed all the staff except one maid for housework and laundry, and a woman from the village who came in once a day to cook – despite the fact that Tamhas had left her a rich woman.’
‘She stayed in the house?’
‘Apparently she would walk every day along the cliffs, or sit on the beach drawing – the same scenes over and over, the sky and the sea.’
Zoe felt an odd chill.
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Mick Drummond inherited a remarkable trove of letters and photographs when his father died last year,’ Charles said, running a moistened finger around the edge of his plate to mop up any stray crumbs. ‘Passed down through the generations, though his father had kept them hidden away. There was an unspoken agreement in the family to leave the story buried, though God knows I did my best over the years to persuade old Mr Drummond to part with those papers, without success. Mick offered them to me, knowing my interest, on condition I didn’t publish anything without his permission. He said he had no time for poking through the past.’
‘Does Mick’s family still own the island?’
‘No – I’m afraid the Drummonds have rather fallen from their former glory. The land has all been sold off piecemeal over the decades – most of the centre is National Trust Scotland now, thank goodness, so it’s protected. But he owns the cove where your house is. The McBride land, as it’s known. He either can’t or won’t get rid of that.’
‘So did you find anything good in the letters?’
‘Oh, a great deal. Plenty relating to the McBride case, which has taken on all the colour of a melodrama over the years. I plan to write a book based on the letters one day, but Mick was adamant he didn’t want anything made public yet. I’m hoping he’ll change his mind, of course, but once he’d decided to do up the house, he was afraid any kind of publicity about the case would frighten people away.’ He took a gulp of coffee. ‘Or, worse, attract them. The wrong people. Haunted-house nuts, psychic researchers, amateur detectives – you know the kind.’
‘So it is haunted?’ She pointed at him, triumphant, as if she had tricked him into admission. Charles merely gave her his quiet smile.
‘I’m coming to that. Most of what I’m telling you I’ve gleaned from William Drummond’s letters.’
‘Ailsa’s brother.’
‘Yes. Young William was a prolific correspondent, it seems – first with his father and sister, and later, after the reverend died, with the solicitor who took over the McBride estate. One of the chief subjects of his letters is his sister’s welfare.’
‘So what happened to Ailsa?’
‘Well, at first she kept to herself. Stayed away from the village, turned down all social invitations. Of course, she had become an intriguing prospect, as you may imagine – a wealthy widow living alone in a large house, relatively young, certainly young enough to remarry. As soon as a decent interval had passed, the
suitors began paying court. She spurned every advance, according to the maid. Burned letters unopened.’
‘Perhaps she was still grieving her husband,’ Zoe murmured.
‘Perhaps,’ Charles said evenly. ‘She saw her father occasionally, but much less than she used to, and not at all once he became too ill to make the journey out to her. Eight months after Tamhas was drowned, the Reverend Drummond also passed away, from pneumonia. Ailsa McBride finally emerged for his funeral – the first time she’d been seen in the village since they buried her husband – and shocked everyone by turning up in an advanced stage of pregnancy.’
‘Wow.’ She stared at him, eyes wide, the mug halfway to her lips. ‘Was it her husband’s?’
‘Naturally, that’s what everyone wanted to know. But no one quite dared to ask her directly and she never offered an explanation. She wrote to her brother of her “poor fatherless child”, but in the same letter she says “his father will always be watching over him”, which sounds like a sentimental reference to her dead husband. But here’s the bombshell.’ He paused for effect, raising an eyebrow over the top of his cup. ‘Ailsa McBride gave birth to a son nearly eleven months after her husband was buried.’
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