by Robin Hardy
'Nevermore.'
'It's just ventriloquism,' Steve heard another, this time Scottish, voice beside him say. He turned and saw the smiling face of a youngish man with a bristly red moustache and horn-rimmed glasses. He was reaching for Steve's case.
'So welcome, Steve. We have been expecting you. Come on in. Your room's ready if you want to rest up after your journey…' He turned to the man with the raven. 'If you're coming in Jack, will you please leave that bird outside. We're tired of cleaning up after it.' He grabbed Steve's hand. 'I'm Peter McNeil by the way. Anything you need here, just give me a shout.'
The room they entered was a spacious saloon which, in Steve's eyes, looked to be very old with great big beams across the ceiling and a long mahogany bar with a zinc top. He had not seen the great number of people who had watched his arrival through the big windows of this bar, but right now there were maybe twenty in the room, mostly men standing in groups, drinks in their hands. Upon his entry they were all silent, turning to look in his direction, most smiling and welcoming. He smiled right back, but something about the people in this bar made him feel uneasy. Perhaps because he had never, in all the times in his young life that he had entered a bar, back in Texas, been greeted like this. Peter McNeil was introducing him – like he was someone real important – and that seemed strange too.
'This is Steve, everyone,' said Peter. 'He's Sir Lachlan's guest and he's here with his fiancée who is staying with Mary Hillier and the girls. As you probably heard she is Beth Boothby, the well-known singing star from the good old US of A.'
'I'm mighty glad to be here,' said Steve loudly, 'thank you all.'
He followed Peter up a big staircase that led off the far end of the bar, next to a small band-stand with an upright piano, drums and a jumble of other musical instruments. His bedroom, which seemed to have no key, looked out on the street. It puzzled him that it was still quite light out there. Just how far north was this place? No one had ever taught Steve any geography, but having crossed an ocean to get here he wondered, for the first time, exactly where he was. He knew that normally if you wanted to know a thing like that you went to a travel agent. His ignorance of this and so many other things he'd seen or heard in the last twenty-four hours made him feel particularly vulnerable. Putting aside his mission, something he knew he would be able to share with Beth, there was so little here that was familiar. Prince, and the promise that he should ride him, was reassuring. He knew horses. He was sure that anywhere on God's green earth, horses would always be his kind of people. But when it came to human people he couldn't think of anyone that he'd met here to whom he could easily relate. Back home you would class Lachlan and Delia as like toney, up scale Yankees, except their voices were all wrong. As for Jack, the guy with the ravens, what a weirdo he was! At least Peter McNeil was normal and friendly. One person did stand out. That Lolly. What a heck of a lot of woman she was. Steve thought how he would like to… and then he remembered Beth.
The Men at the Inn
THE BAR DOWNSTAIRS wasn't that different from a half dozen he knew in and around Fort Worth. As he descended the stairs he found the atmosphere now much more reassuring. Conversation, lively chatter even, had replaced the eerie silence that had greeted him earlier.
A guy dressed in a suit came up accompanied by three others wearing jeans and working clothes. He guessed them to be just a few years older then he.
'I'm Danny,' said the suit. 'This is Carl, he's Paul, and he's Dawcus.'
One of Steve's great gifts was a most charming smile, which showed up perfect teeth in a well-tanned face, under his tousled mop of butter coloured hair. He looked like a Scot's idea of what a cowboy ought to be like. Even without his hat, although he rarely took that off, so it was never put to the test. He shook the other men's hands and they all moved to the bar where he was offered a drink on the house by Peter, the innkeeper.
Steve had promised Beth that, at least for now, until their mission was well established, he would be dry. He looked around the bar at the rows of Scotch whisky bottles (he just loved Scotch, more than Bourbon even, and he had a real taste for that) and his mouth felt so dry. He looked at the beer on tap, but he'd heard they served it warm and he didn't care for the idea. Beth must be thinking of him, so vividly did he feel her influence.
Every drop of drink accursed
Makes Christ within you – die of thirst.
Beth'd sung that old Salvation Army hymn at their last Redeemers meeting back in Texas. And then a scene from an old Bob Hope movie he'd seen real late one night came into his head and made him almost laugh out loud.
'So what will you have, Steve?' repeated Peter, while the others looked on expectantly, politely waiting to place their own orders.
'Don't suppose you guys ever saw an old Bob Hope movie called The Road to… I guess it was Alaska,' said Steve. 'Bob Hope comes into this saloon full of real tough lookin hombres – like Jack over there.' Everyone looked at Jack and laughed. 'And there's this, like, total silence while they all stare at Bob. And he asks for a lemonade. Yeah, a lemonade. Then he sees they're all looking like they're goin' to throw him out into the street. So he adds: "A lemonade – in a dirty glass!"'
The laughter was real.
'I'll have a Coke please,' said Steve.
Some musicians had gathered by the upright piano near the staircase. Steve thought it would be good to hear something other than religious music again and immediately felt guilty for thinking it. He noticed, too, that Jack was standing at the end of the bar, staring, not directly at him, but once again at his hat. It made Steve a bit nervous so he took it off and put it on the bar in the hope that Jack would look away. He did. Steve then asked Danny in a quiet voice to tell him about Jack.
'Is that all what Jack does, look after those birds?'
'Find him a bit strange do you, Steve? Did he quote poetry at you? The Edgar Allan Poe piece?'
'It was about a raven. He made like the bird spoke to him. I gotta admit – it was like weird. His accent was kind of different from your Scottish accents. So I couldn't quite get it.'
'He's English and maybe has a condition called Aspergers – much less serious than autism, but one of those things that affects the brain from childhood. His parents were killed in a car accident when he was a teenager. His dad was a nuclear physicist working up here for Nuada, so Sir Lachlan arranged for him to be well supported and he's ended up with this job looking after the ravens. He had a very bad stutter as a kid so someone tried teaching him verse – made him try to sing what he had to say. It's a recognised treatment for stuttering. His singing is really terrible, so we managed to cure him of that part. But he is always sort of reverting to verse. He has this amazing memory for poetry. Poor Jack can be a real pain. But some people treat him as a kind of oracle…'
'Oracle?' Steve thought he knew about autism. Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. But what was this?
'A bit like a prophet,' said Danny, and saw the astonishment on Steve's face. 'Well not really a prophet. It's just that since you can't have a real conversation with him – he makes statements. Sort of oblique they are. He makes them sound like prophecies. The Laird has called him a fortune-cookie prophet and insists that he can hold a conversation with you if he really, really wants to. Still it's usually in verse even then.'
Steve decided to ignore Jack's stare and chatted on with the crowd at the bar. He learned that Danny had a senior job as Head of Personnel at the Nuada power station. Carl, a good-looking, heavily built, athletic man who reminded Steve of a guy who had played line back for the Carolina Panthers, was watching a rugby game on the TV set above the bar. He explained the rules to Steve, who was a tad incredulous that the only protective gear the players wore was a 'box' to preserve what Carl called 'their testimonials'.
A youth with long spatulate hands had started to play the piano. Steve turned to watch and listen. The drum slipped rhythmically into sympathy with the melody while, a few bars on, a penny whistle gave a little sobbing sound a
nd started to weave its way into the tune, just a beat before the pianist's voice came in too:
'Will you go, Laddie, go
To the braes o' Balquiddher
We'll crown the lass your Queen
We'll feast the night together.'
At Mary Hillier's House
BETH HAD SPENT less of her life in female company than most women of her age. Her fame, her consequent riches and her beauty tended to keep people like her female high school classmates at a distance. Some went out of their way to show they were unimpressed, some were frankly jealous, while the majority were somewhat awe-struck and a few girls had shown all too embarrassingly that they had a crush on her. In spite of this, she had found a couple of close woman friends. Her make-up artist, who had been so wonderfully supportive about her decision to give up using cosmetics altogether, was one. She was a real close friend. There was also one girl from the same grade at school who helped her with the long gaps in her studies caused by tours and special gigs. These two kept close through lengthy telephone calls in which they shared the minutiae of each other's lives.
Boys had been easier. They accepted that she was Steve's girl and he handled his role as the alpha male in that pack in the typically relaxed, cool way that made her love him so much.
So, the warm welcome she was to find in the house of Mary Hillier, where four other young women seemed already quite at home, was a slightly novel experience.
It might have surprised Beth and Steve to recognise the same song that was being sung at the inn was also being sung at Mary Hillier's house. As Beth entered the big comfortable living room, the four young women either had their heads bent over some needlework or were carefully guiding cloth through a couple of sewing machines.
'Will you go, Laddie, go…' the four girls were singing in unison, apparently unaware of Beth's presence.
'Girls…' Mary began to speak. But Beth put a restraining hand on the older woman's arm. They'd been introduced outside, by the car. Lachlan had said that Mary had once been the school mistress, but the nearest school now was ten miles away, so she co-ordinated the May Day celebrations, taught singing and ran the Tressock library.
'Please Mary,' said Beth. 'I'd like to listen for a moment. That is just such a lovely song.'
'It's a May Day song. One of many we sing in Maytide…'
The girls, one by one, noticed Beth's presence and stopped singing. They stood, smiling, and, putting their dressmaking aside, immediately came across the room to greet Beth with outstretched hands.
'Hi, I'm Bella,' said a dark-haired girl with ivory white skin and deep brown eyes.
'I hope our singing didn't sound too awful. We're longing to hear you sing. I'm Chloe, by the way,' said a tall fair-haired beauty with eyes as pale blue as a kitten's.
'This is Sweet Sue…' said Mary Hillier, laughing, clearly an injoke.
'…Who would much rather be called Sensible Sue,' said a stockily built young woman with thick pebbled glasses that enlarged smiling eyes over dimpled cheeks.
'And I'm Deirdre. I think it's only fair to warn you – I'm a witch.'
'Don't believe her,' laughed Sue. 'What she is just rhymes with witch. But we love her just the same.'
They all laughed, even Deirdre. Another in-joke, thought Beth, but she felt comfortable with these women. They seemed relaxed with her. They were friendly. She liked them.
Deirdre had just finished the dress she was working on and she held it up for Mary to inspect. Beth was fascinated by it. Much more than a mere party dress, something a girl would go out to a dance in, or wear at a prom, or as a bridesmaid at a very fancy wedding, this dress was like a costume for a festive scene in an opera or in a classical ballet. It had a clinging under-garment made of pale mauve satin. Embroidered upon the gauzy material a profusion of blossoms seemed to cascade from the shoulders, nestling around the bust, which the dress held high, like in those Jane Austen television plays Beth had seen on public television.
As if they read her mind, the four girls begged Beth to try it on but Mary Hillier seemed doubtful.
'It's the Queen's dress,' she said. 'We don't normally…' she began. But a chorus of protests made her hesitate.
'Well, if Beth would like to try it on,' she said eventually. 'Let's take her stuff up to her room and she can slip it on there, in front of that tall mirror.'
Beth was genuinely delighted. How right Lachlan and Delia had been to have her come here and get to know these girls. No way they'd have been as relaxed and comfortable with her if Steve had been there too. Now, when the time came to talk to them about the Lord, they would be already on the way to becoming friends. They'd promised Delia and Lachlan that she and Steve would wait for their signal as to when it would be appropriate to start their mission in Tressock. The party they were being given up at the Morrison's place was apparently to be the venue. Some kind of castle it seemed; she'd just glimpsed it as they were driving into town. Steve, who'd had a better view, had said, 'holy shit!' and then, 'wow,' before she managed to give him a gentle kick. She hadn't wanted the Morrisons to think they were hicks.
By the time Mary and the girls had crowded into her cute but definitely small bedroom, Beth had taken off all her clothes except her bra and her panties and, after looking more closely at the dress, realised the bra would have to go too. Beth was feeling totally at home in Mary Hillier's house.
When she had finally struggled and squirmed her way into the dress, stretching her arms and her neck, shaking out her heavy, light brown hair, she delayed turning to look at herself in the mirror. She had been so relieved that, after years of dyeing it blond and forcing it to be straight and long, now that it was her real original hair again it fell once more in natural waves upon her shoulders. She drank in the expressions on the faces of Mary Hillier and the four young women as they stared at her as if in awe. Well, she thought, I must look pretty good in this dress, but that good? She turned to face the mirror.
It was a glorious dress and she felt beautiful in it. Really beautiful. But something in the looks of the girls, staring at her, awakened just an instant or two of disquiet. They had stopped chattering.
'Does everyone get to wear a dress like this?' asked Beth. 'I think it is just the most beautiful thing I ever wore.'
'The boys certainly don't,' laughed Sue nervously.
'A few will wear the kilt,' added Bella.
'No, no, Beth. You are wearing the Queen of the May's coronation dress,' said Mary Hillier. 'But everyone makes themselves something pretty nice for the coronation. That was what the girls were working on when you arrived.'
'Only Deirdre made this?' asked Beth, as she took off the dress. 'Congratulations, honey. You should be designing for some big fashion house.'
'To be honest, everyone got in on the act,' said Deirdre. 'I just put a spell on it to make it lovelier.'
The other girls all giggled and Mary Hillier looked severe.
'One year,' said Chloe, 'the Queen was so big in the bust and bum department that all the seams had to be let out at the last minute.'
'And several gussets put in,' added Bella.
'Allowing you to try on the dress was exceptional, Beth,' said Mary. 'Please don't tell anyone. But Sir Lachlan and Lady Morrison rather hope that you'll consent to be nominated for election as our May Queen this year. I know they want to ask you themselves.'
Beth was amazed. Her first instinct was to refuse. But she knew that there were many native peoples for whom refusal of a request like this one would be a signal for the hosts to take great offence. This was reputed to be the case with the families of Mexican immigrant help back in Texas. Beth had heard of cases where people, asked to one of their weddings, had refused to eat some delicacy that looked real yucky but which had been specially saved for them. It was immediately clear that the hosts had been deeply offended.
Without those accents and weird customs you could almost imagine some of these Scots as mainstream Americans. More to the point, the Queen's dress w
as just the most beautiful costume she had ever had an opportunity to wear. Nor was it in any way, shape or form overtly sexy. All the clothes made for her performances stateside were designed to accentuate her breasts, show off her navel, sit tight over her ass, show her inner thighs almost all the way up to her tush. A girl singer went on stage these days like some twenty-first century Delilah, only without the veils. This Queen of the May dress was super feminine. Sure, it plumped up her tits but that look was, like, historic. Otherwise it was just beautiful. A fairy queen's dress. If she decided to play along with this election for Queen of their festival they'd be that much happier to listen to her and Steve talk to them about the Lord. Beth had decided.
'Why, when I think about it,' she said at last, swirling the skirt, with its cascade of little silver leaves and golden flowers, to and fro, in front of the mirror, 'I think I am just going to have to say "yes," I am real grateful for the honour. But you mentioned an election, Mary?'
'If Sir Lachlan and Lady Morrison nominate you… take it from me, you'll be elected,' said Mary, smiling.
'Snakes alive! What am I doing?' Beth suddenly exclaimed. 'You guys must want to try on this wonderful dress too'
Putting on a robe she was handed by Mary Hillier, Beth did not see the look of horror that flickered briefly over the girls' faces.
'Only the Queen ever wears that dress,' said Mary Hillier pleasantly but firmly.
Before she went to bed, Beth read carefully through the concordant section of her Redeemers' Bible to check out nuclear and to see if there was anywhere the Lord took a position on it. There was no record of its being mentioned anywhere, not even in Revelations, where you might have expected to find it, nor in the chapter where the Cities of the Plains had all those problems. It was almost eleven when she asked Mary Hillier if she could call Delia.
'Of course,' said her surprised hostess. 'But don't you think it's a bit late?'
'I know,' said Beth. 'And I feel bad about that. But it is something I promised to do.'