The Treacle Well

by Moira Forsyth

  ‘The children are very young,’ she said. ‘And there’s a house to buy, all the palaver of getting settled in that, and Jack works so hard, he needs to be able to relax when he comes home, so I have to make sure – ’

  Caroline held up her hands, fending off this litany. ‘Stop! No more. Look, I’m not going to go on, but that’s not enough. Not for someone with your good brain, that as far as I can see you’ve never used to the full, except maybe in your final year at Aberdeen, you worked then, didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t see – ’

  ‘You think it’s not my business.’

  ‘Well – ’

  ‘If – just supposing – you could stay at Braeside. Live in this house, if it was your house – would you want to? Never mind schools and football and Jack – just you. Would you?’

  Silenced, Esther stared at her cousin, this mysterious woman who was once their dear Caroline, reading from Alice, doing the voices with such realism you laughed and wondered and believed in it all. Lost to them years ago, long before Daniel died. When he left, she left too, in her head, she left them. Was this Caroline back again, and anyway, what was she talking about? Into the space she had made for Caroline, for thinking about her, came her grandmother, and the weeks she had spent here as a child, helping in the garden and with the hens, sleeping in the big feather bed – long disposed of by Gordon – waking to the wood pigeons in the trees outside, the sun streaming in the bedroom window, Granny downstairs already and the smell of oatcakes on the griddle.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I love this house.’

  Caroline heaved a sigh. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘that’s what you must do.’

  ‘But – you mean, rent it from you? Or you and Margaret – isn’t it up to both of you – I mean – whose house is it?’

  Caroline’s mouth tightened. ‘Mine,’ she said. ‘The house is mine. Dad told me years ago. He’s left money to Margaret from the sale of his house in Richmond. She’ll be fine now without that awful Mike. Why on earth did she marry him? Women are such fools.’

  Esther laughed. ‘Oh, Caroline, why have you stayed away so long? You’re good for us, you should have said that to her, she still thinks she did something wrong.’

  ‘She did. She married him. Oh well – ’ They were both laughing. ‘Sorry,’ Caroline said. ‘Getting off the point altogether. What I’m saying is, you can have Braeside.’

  ‘What do you mean – have it?’

  ‘I’m giving it to you. For your lifetime. If you want it.’ She looked round the kitchen. ‘I’d put an Aga in here, or a Rayburn. And the wood in the doors is drying out – you need to oil it regularly if you’re not going to paint it and I guess you won’t.’

  ‘But – oh, I don’t know what Jack will say.’

  Caroline shrugged. ‘I’m not giving it to Jack. I’m giving it to you.’ She leaned back, tipping the kitchen chair on its hind legs. ‘I have plenty of money, I don’t need to sell the place. And I want it to – stay. I grew up here too, Esther. We both did.’

  Esther was about to say – and Louise and Margaret too, when she realised with a jolt that ‘both’ meant Caroline and Daniel.

  Caroline righted her chair. ‘That’s decided then. I’m going in to see John Chalmers today – he’s dealing with Dad’s estate. I’d better find the files I need to take with me. I’ll ask him to draw up something. I thought I’d put the house in trust for your children, and you and Jack have the right to stay in it – something like that. I’ll take his advice, sort it out.’

  When she had left the kitchen, Esther went on sitting at the table, unsure whether the giddy feeling was because of the coffee or the conversation. Was that it – had Caroline just given her Braeside? Surely not, surely it must be temporary – for the meantime? In trust for your children. That sounded permanent.

  What are you going to do? Caroline had asked. It seemed she was going to inherit Braeside, and look after the house. Was there more to it than that? She knew what Jack would say: ‘it’s your house, you decide’ but he would also point out how expensive the house would be to maintain. What a millstone round their necks, a great place like this, had a surveyor ever inspected it, was there damp, what was the roof like now, and what about redecoration? An Aga? How could they afford that?

  I have to have answers, she thought, I have to be prepared. She got up and went to find Caroline, who might know some of them already. She was on her way upstairs when it occurred to her that what Caroline was doing was immensely unfair – if not to them, then certainly to Louise. And what about Margaret?

  She paused halfway up and bent to pick up a toy truck left wedged between banisters, and a single pink sock. She would speak to her parents. Wasn’t this something the whole family should discuss?

  Below, she heard the postman’s van rattling along the lane and into the yard. She turned and went back down to open the door to him.

  ‘Cauld the day,’ he said. ‘Winter’s on the wey, eh?’

  ‘Probably,’ Esther agreed.

  There was the electricity bill and two other letters for Gordon. She supposed she should just hand them to Caroline. But who should pay the electricity bills now? She opened it, just to see how much – oh God, terrifying. They couldn’t possibly afford to stay here.

  She stood by the door listening to the van rattle away down the lane. There had to be a way. She had to make it work.

  Caroline was coming downstairs with an armful of files.

  ‘Thank goodness Dad was organised. He had it all in the bottom drawer of the big chest in his room. He told me where to look last time we spoke.’

  ‘The postie’s been – there are letters for him. I suppose – ’

  ‘I’ll take them. When I’ve gone home, just open everything and pass it to John Chalmers – unless it’s something you can deal with yourself.’

  ‘And the Hydro Electric people – the bill’s come.’

  ‘He’ll sort that out. Give it to me.’

  ‘We should pay some of it – ’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll have the next one to deal with all by yourself.’ She smiled, mocking, as if giving them Braeside wasn’t so generous after all. Look what you’re landing me with, Esther thought.

  ‘I do need to discuss it with Jack,’ she said. ‘I mean – I can’t believe how generous – ’

  ‘I’m not.’ She was not smiling now. ‘Don’t go on about it. The only thing you should be thinking about now is your own career. I mean it.’

  Career! When had she ever come close to having such a thing?

  ‘I don’t know – ’

  ‘Make the house pay then, that’s the other way to do it.’

  ‘The house?’

  ‘Think about it.’ She was putting the files into a large cardboard box. ‘Now, call me a taxi – I can’t take this lot on a bus all the way to Aberdeen.’

  ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘Have you time?’

  ‘Oh yes. Kirsty doesn’t come out till quarter to three.’

  ‘Fine. Get your coat then.’

  As they drove to the city the sun came out, lighting the fields and distant hills with the deceptive appearance of warmth. Caroline was silent, watching the familiar landscape, but whether she was noticing, caring about it, Esther did not know.

  ‘I’ll go and see Mum,’ she said, ‘while you’re at the lawyer’s.’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll get a taxi up to Harrowden Place when I’m done at Cowie’s.’

  Janet was pleased to see her, so unexpectedly.

  ‘Your father went out to the Golf Club,’ she said, taking Esther into the den, where the gas fire was on and the room warm. ‘He’s usually there on a Tuesday.’

  ‘Caroline is coming here when she’s finished at the lawyers.’

  ‘I’ve lentil soup on, you can get a bowl of that and some bread and cheese before you go home.’

  ‘That’s lovely. You’ve always got soup, Mum, it’s very comforting.’

  Janet laughed
. ‘Oh well, I’m glad you’re pleased.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Would you like coffee? I can make the stuff you like, in that cafetière Louise gave us.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Esther knew she would make it strong enough, if she did it herself. Even stronger now, thinking of Caroline’s heady brew.

  ‘I’ll heat up some milk.’

  Companionably, in the kitchen, they got the coffee ready and Janet took out some of her own shortbread.

  ‘I suppose she’s handing it all over to John Chalmers,’ Janet said, when they had made themselves comfortable in the den. ‘Gordon’s estate.’

  ‘Well, yes. I thought maybe Margaret, but – I don’t know.’

  ‘Margaret will be glad enough to leave it all to them, I’m sure.’

  Esther thought her mother looked tired. She did not touch the shortbread.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Me? I’m fine, dear. Just – it’s not easy to take in. I can’t get used to it. That he’s gone.’

  ‘I know. Braeside seems strange without him.’

  ‘I’m glad he took it on – your Dad and I don’t have to deal with that now. Caroline can put it on the market, or get the solicitor to do it. Since she’s in London.’

  ‘She says it’s hers. Not Margaret’s. She said he left Margaret money instead from the Richmond house – is that right?’

  ‘Oh yes. He did tell me, some time ago. Not that it’s any of our business, I said, but it’s important you make your children equal.’ She put more hot milk in her coffee and drank some. ‘That’s better. You young ones like it awful strong.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine now.’ After a moment, she said, ‘Esther, your Dad and I have made everything quite clear. In our wills – everything will go to Louise and you, equally. You’ll make sure Margaret gets whatever things she wants though, from the house.’

  ‘Of course we will! Don’t talk about it, it’s years away.’

  Still, they did have to think about money, and inheritance. Because of Caroline, and Braeside.

  Eventually, Esther managed to tell Louise. On the other end of the line, there was a stunned silence, then Louise began to laugh.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘I was miffed about the emerald ring – but a fucking house! And our house, Granny’s house – that’s unbelievable.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Esther said, ‘I’m sorry, I said to her, what about Louise, and she said, is Louise going to have children now? Who would she leave it to? I’ll put it in your joint names, you and Lou and Jack, if it makes you feel better.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I’d speak to you.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Lou? Lou, I’m sorry. I hate this.’

  ‘Did Mum say “Trust Caroline to cause trouble”?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘She’s right, that’s the worst of it. I’m not going to have kids, you and Margaret are the only ones to provide the next generation. Daniel, Caroline, me – we’re end-stopped. We go no further down the ages. But you do. You and Jack.’

  ‘But it’s worth a lot of money, Jack says, even though it’s falling to bits – ’

  ‘It’s not, well it is worth money, and it’s not falling to bits, but that’s not what matters. If she gives it to you in trust for the kids, you have to live in it, you can’t just sell it.’

  ‘No, well that’s the point, isn’t it? To keep it in the family.’

  Another long pause. ‘I always felt we held on to too much, in our family. Stuff. Property. The past, the bad stuff. Now Caroline’s hanging it round your neck like a – what? Millstone? Who would put a real millstone round their neck? What’s that about? There must be a better metaphor.’

  ‘It’s an anchor,’ Esther said, realising this was what she believed.

  ‘Ah, well done. But you do know that as long as you’re anchored, you can’t sail away?’

  She did not want to sail away, she wanted to stay and bring up their children, work the garden, keep hens, be rooted in the same place. And yet, hearing Louise’s light voice, her mocking laugh, for an instant she was afraid, and pictured Louise herself, in her little craft, sailing away from them all, as Daniel had done.

  V

  The Golden Key

  2011–2012

  Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. ‘Now, I’ll manage better this time,’ she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key and unlocking the door that led to the garden.

  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

  The Cottage near Ullapool

  2011

  A year before he died, Esther and Jack took a cottage in West Sutherland for a week. They rarely went away in the summer because of the business, but this time she had taken no bookings for the first week in October, and in the second half of September they had only one which they were able to pass to a friend in the village. It had not been a good season for anyone. Esther blamed the weather, Jack the recession. The children had visited at various times over the summer, but they had all gone home now. Esther packed clothes and food in the car, Jack put up the ‘No Vacancies’ sign at the end of the lane in to Braeside, and they left.

  The cottage was on the edge of a loch ten miles north of Lochinver, white-washed and remote, the garden area invaded by sheep undeterred by the gate. They had jumped the stone walls so often their favourite breaches had crumbled. Facing the house were the great hills of West Sutherland Jack had climbed in his forties and fifties: Canisp, Suilven, Cul Mhor and Cul Beag. They loomed on the horizon, perhaps never to be attempted again. That was a relief but it was also, for Jack, a frustration. Gordon had died at the foot of Mount Keen; Robin Cook had died on Ben Stack. The suddenness of those deaths, one private and the other public, had shocked them both. Then after Jack’s heart attack Esther was even more afraid of his going out on the hills on his own. What if that happened to them?

  It was nearly a year since that seizure, and he had had a stent fitted in an artery, but even now fear kept her anxious about him and – mostly – tolerant.

  They had, they told each other afterwards, a perfect week. It was glorious Indian summer weather: crisp mornings warming to fine blue-skied days, hot enough when they were walking to shed their fleece tops, once even for shorts. Closer than the great hills was a rolling landscape of rock and heather, easy ascents taking twenty minutes or so, one leading on to the next, each topped by a small cairn they touched with superstitious care every time they reached a summit. At their feet the latest of the year’s wild flowers faded, moss in places made the going springy and soft and below them lochans shimmered in sunshine. The water lilies were over but their flat leaves spread across the surface near the banks. In several fenced conservation enclosures there was vigorous regrowth of alder, rowan and Scots pine, beneath which the bracken was dense and tall grasses waved.

  She should have been perfectly happy.

  Rising late, they began the morning with Bach soaring from the I Pod speakers they’d brought with them, and the smell of coffee, then after breakfast boots on and a tramp up the hill behind the cottage or a walk to the farm for eggs. That was all they needed, that and their stack of books, bottle of malt whisky and the plain easy meals she cooked on holiday.

  Foolish to be hurt that Jack was no different from the way he was at home: still arrogant and annoying as usual, she decided, stumping after him. He always managed to be five or ten yards ahead of her, however they had begun.

  ‘I thought we were supposed to be walking together,’ she complained at one point, catching up when he raised his field glasses to stare at a speck in the sky that might be a buzzard or just possibly –

  ‘Yes – I think it is – look at the wing shape. That’s an eagle.’ He turned to her, pleased, holding out the glasses, but she shrugged.

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘What’s
up?’

  ‘Can’t we walk side by side? We’re supposed to be on holiday.’

  He only laughed. ‘We do,’ he said, ‘then you lag behind.’

  She took a swipe at him, half playful, half angry. ‘It’s not that way at all.’

  They stopped in a sheltered spot by a lochan to have a flask of tea and slabs of fruit cake. Afterwards, lying back on their waterproofs, his rucksack for a pillow, they dozed for ten minutes in sunny warmth, soothed by a stillness lifted from silence only by the lap of water and bird calls.

  Esther stirred, realising Jack had gone. She sat up with a leap of the heart but scolding herself. He was fine, he had wandered off as usual, too restless to lie still for long. Getting up, she saw him clambering over the hill behind them. There he goes, she thought, not a word to me, off on his own. She packed up the rucksack, left it by a large boulder at the side of the path and began to follow. She was resentful, guilty about being sullen, but unable to shake off her mood. I should be happy, she thought, why am I not happy? She often asked herself this pointless question. Better to let it go.

  He turned to wave and smile as she breasted the hill and joined him. She too touched the crooked pile of stones doing duty as a cairn.

  ‘Judy would have loved this,’ he said, as he had said a dozen times this week. The dog had died six months before, grieved over but somehow, for the first time in their marriage, not replaced.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘maybe we should think about another dog now.’ She had given this answer a dozen times too. They agreed, but still did nothing.

  ‘Look at this,’ he told her, encompassing the view with his arm. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

  I wish he’d just let me enjoy it, I don’t have to be told, why do we always have to be saying how great it is. A moment passed, long in the silence. Then, without warning, his hand, large and hard and warm, reached out and grasped hers tightly.

  ‘Esther,’ he said.

  The lump rose in her throat like remorse and she went into his arms with a sigh, resting there.