by Neil M. Gunn
Ranald’s voice called, “Hullo!” from the back door. She stood quite still. She could not face him yet. They would think she was at the steading. Nan would be getting up. She closed her eyes. Presently, with anxious stealth, she saw her way clear to the steading.
An hour later she was back chopping wood. “So there you are!” called Ranald from the back door. “Doing my job!” As he came and took the hatchet from her, Nan stood in the door, frail and wondering, her eyes lifting from Aunt Phemie to the roofs of the outhouses, to the tops of the apple trees showing beyond, to the sky, to things at hand and far away, to the quiet loveliness of the world.
There was something in Nan at that moment, some essence of life or being, that Aunt Phemie knew she loved with a profound and tragic love; the eternal essence, forever sought, embodied for a timeless instant. Nan’s eyes came smiling on her face.
Aunt Phemie’s eyes answered; then in her natural voice, lightly, she said, “I was thinking of doing a small washing.”
She kept on the move through the afternoon and evening, washing, cooking, sending Nan to bed, talking sensibly, going out to the steading, remembering this and that which had to be done, her ears growing sharper as the hours wore on, her eyes a hundred times on the road to the farm. But no-one came. When at last she got into bed, she sank back exhausted.
She was awakened during the night. A murmur of voices. She thought: it has come! Her body was gripped as by an actual nightmare. But she strove to listen, fought for soundless breath, and at last got to her feet, to the door. There she leaned against the wall, dizzy. No-one had come. Ranald had got up and gone into Nan’s room. That was all.
Soundlessly she drew her door open a couple of inches. Ranald could not have closed Nan’s door, for she could hear his voice, low but distinct, as though he were sitting on her bed, talking to her.
“I know,” murmured Nan.
Silence.
“I miss you in London. I’ll miss you more than ever now,” he said, without any emotion. Then, after a moment, “I wanted to tell you that. Whatever happens to me—that’s how it is.”
He got up. Aunt Phemie closed her door without shutting it. She heard his voice again, as though he had walked to Nan’s window, but she could not now make out what he said. She wanted to hear, to hear every word, but her hand, convulsively gripping the knob, drew the door quite shut; as she let the knob go there was a sharp click. They’ve heard me! she thought. There was complete silence in the house. She got back to bed, staggering a little. After two or three minutes, Nan’s door was quietly closed and Ranald went softly to his own room.
For hours Aunt Phemie’s mind turned and twisted, searching into every conceivable argument and impulse, now doubting, now perceiving with an utter clarity, quietening but to stir and think again, until she burned as from fever. She fell asleep—to be wakened by Nan. She was late! They must hurry! “Say goodbye to Nan,” she called, after the rushed breakfast, “while I get out the car.”
There he was coming, tall and pale, Nan’s powder on his wounds, his kitbag over his shoulder. She drew all her resources together, tautened herself.
“Too bad troubling you,” he said. “I had meant to catch the bus.”
“It was I who slept in. However, I’ve got some business to do in town.” She let in the clutch and they were off. She had an impulse to keep on talking, as though she might thus ward off everything and everyone, including the police. Once, during the night, she had thought she would test him on the way, by a chance remark, and be guided by his reaction, so that at the last moment, if he were secretly tortured about Adam’s death, she might relieve him, even on the station platform; but now, in the daylight, in his actual presence, the notion was preposterous, a complication to be absolutely avoided. “I often have some business in town,” she said in a brisk manner.
“I suppose so.”
“Yes. There’s an architect I’ve been meaning to see for a long time.”
“Building?”
“Yes. The farm cottages. It’s an old scheme of my husband’s. It had to be abandoned when war broke out.” What had made her think of that? she wondered.
As she went on talking, she had time to be inwardly and distantly amused at herself, as at a voice in an ironic play. She saw he was interested in the farm workers, of course! She described in detail her husband’s scheme for lifting the cottage roofs and turning each dwelling into a two-storied house, with water laid on, lavatory and bath. Greenbank was going to have been a model farm. She intended to make it that yet, she said. That, in fact, was the main reason why she had stayed on. Her voice rose with the speedometer needle. She was analysing the position in the local building trade and the Government’s attitude to farming when they entered the town. “We have eight minutes—plenty of time,” she said, glancing at the clock in the steeple and easing off.
“All that’s very interesting.”
“I rather think so,” she agreed. “Farming finally depends on the worker. Without a decent house, he won’t stay—at least the girl won’t.” A policeman at a street corner waved her on. Her heart rose. Ranald said something, but she wasn’t listening to him now. “Politicians don’t understand that the basic person on crofts and farms is the young woman. If she refuses to stay and marry because of the house and amenities, it’s all up,” said Aunt Phemie. They were driving into the station square. There were no police here at all. “Well, that’s that,” she said finally taking her hands off the wheel and sitting quite still, as if resting.
“You needn’t come out,” he said.
She sat.
“And thank you very much.”
But she suddenly changed her mind. “Might as well get an early paper,” she decided and slammed the door neatly.
Now they were on the platform, before the bookstall. The minutes got lost among the crowd. The train was on time. Here it came!
“Well, good-bye, Ranald.” She put out her hand. “I hope you have a nice journey.”
“Thanks.”
“It was good of you to come. So long!” She turned smartly away, out through the station, into her car. She waited, upright, until she heard the thresh of steam from the moving train; then for a few seconds she drooped over the wheel, closing her eyes. Limp, all stiffening gone, she lifted her head. Her vision played tricks with her as she fumbled for the self-starter.
Part Three
RECOVERY
1
No police came during the forenoon after Ranald’s departure, and Aunt Phemie began to wonder if Adam McAlpine was really dead. Otherwise it seemed incredible that he should have withheld a description of Ranald from the police. The police, in view of all the circumstances, including the very odd appearance of the deposit receipt, were bound to crossquestion him and even compel the information, simply because the whole mysterious affair linked up with old Farquhar’s murder. For Adam to refuse to give information would now bring suspicion upon himself. And why should he refuse—seeing how, from Jump-the-dyke’s story, he had so bitterly hated the man who had attacked him, who had so obviously thought he had done him to death?
Should she have stopped in town and tried indirectly to find out? Shand, the seedsman, with whom she ran her main account, would have begun on the story without a word from her. But she hadn’t had the strength; and in any case her instinct had told her to keep absolutely clear of the whole affair. Before the police she would show complete astonishment, because Ranald had been at home that fatal day for lunch in the usual way. She couldn’t stop them from getting on to Ranald in London—but she could keep the news from Nan.
Adam must either be dead—or too ill to be coherent. And then a new thought struck her: Adam might have had no idea who Ranald was or where he stayed. Apart from that trip to town for cigarettes, Ranald had never left the farm. Adam might have tried to describe Ranald, but his description would be—could be—only that of a mysterious stranger.
There might be a breathing space at least. And if Adam was dead,
then, in the absence of any witness, Ranald could never be convicted on the capital charge.
After returning from the station she had gone upstairs to Nan’s room, smiling, saying that was Ranald off, cheerfully amused at Nan’s bright-eyed interest, but not lingering because, as she said, the grieve was lying in wait for her.
Nan had wanted to talk about Ranald. There was nothing else she wanted to talk about. It was so obvious that it was like a state of mesmerised suspense, could be felt without even a glance at her. From the moment Ranald had come into the kitchen with the blood clots on his face and that new subtle friendly excitement in his manner, Nan had changed. From that moment her real recovery had started. This was more certain to Aunt Phemie than anything that ever could be explained. When Nan had said “That was Ranald” she had actually meant: That was the real Ranald, the Ranald she loved. Her shy bright eyes had said silently: Now you understand? And Aunt Phemie had understood.
The real Ranald! Whenever Aunt Phemie thought of it, a bleakness, as from a grey wind, withered her breast. She would have to get through this talk with Nan, this endless intimate talk about Ranald. It frightened her. The pulse in her temples was beginning to throb and spread. She needed sleep to bring back calm and cunning.
When handing Nan her milk pudding at lunch, she said, “I feel a horrid headache coming on. I think I’ll have an aspirin and lie down for a little. Do you mind?”
“I’m sorry,” said Nan, her eyes darkening with sympathy as if she were to blame.
“Not at all,” said Aunt Phemie, smiling, but incapable of hiding a sudden dryness. “A short rest and I’ll be perfectly all right.”
Nan was silent for a moment. “Do,” she said gently. “I’m fine.”
“That’s good. We have plenty of time for talking!” Aunt Phemie exhibited an ironic briskness. “Now, have you everything? You’re sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.”
Then Aunt Phemie brought her eyes to Nan’s face, nodded, smiled and went out. Her heart was beating painfully. Nan’s softness, her sympathy, her gentleness, had suddenly irritated her. Oh, she was getting sick of emotion! And as she went downstairs she knew a certain wild kinship to Ranald, to his destructive mood. She had eaten no lunch. She was literally feeling sick. This sudden change in her own mood dazed her, shook her with an unaccountable bitterness. She rested for a while in the kitchen, but when she stared out through the window, nature took on a new aspect, inimical in its heavy stillness. And all at once, and quietly, behind what had been happening, behind Nan and Ranald and the moods and actions of their desperate world to-day, there rose before her, dark and dead, like the pattern of a sombre landscape, her own past tragedy. She thought of Dan, and his movement in her mind was the movement of a slow figure of death. She filled a glass with water and went up with it to her bedroom. She drank down two aspirins, took off her skirt, and got under the eiderdown. Within a couple of minutes she was in a deep sleep.
Nan woke her, tapping gently on the door, bringing a cup of tea, a biscuit in the saucer.
“Goodness gracious me!” cried Aunt Phemie, “where—what time is it?”
“It’s getting on for five.”
“Five!”
“Yes. No-one has run away with the house.”
“No-one been at all?”
“No.”
Aunt Phemie relaxed, stretched herself. “I had such a lovely sleep…! This is kind of you, Nan. How are you really feeling?”
“Grand. A bit trembly, you know.” She suddenly sat down on the bed, trembled, and laughed.
“My dear, you shouldn’t——”
“Now don’t boss me,” Nan interrupted her. “Even if you see me going about on all fours. I’m up!”
Aunt Phemie looked at her with a tender humour. “You’re the nearest thing to a daffodil in the snow I’ve seen for a long time.”
“Do you know,” said Nan with an air of conspiracy, letting Aunt Phemie in on the astonishing secret, “that’s just how I feel!” And she added, as if listening, “Hsh-sh!”
Aunt Phemie laughed and drank her tea.
“I have a confession to make,” said Nan. “I was up on the washing green.”
“Nan!” It was a note of reproof, for Aunt Phemie was only now realising what might have happened had the police inspector, with his cold water-blue detecting eyes, come to the house and found Nan alone.
Nan nodded. “It’s the loveliest washing green,” she said mysteriously. “What a size the dockens are! And there are some nettles growing right in under the apple tree. And plantains with immense leaves. Some starlings were on the big ash beyond the hedge. Do you remember the collective nouns: a murmuration of starlings, wasn’t it? It’s a lovely word, but it’s not right.” She shook her head.
“No?”
“No,” said Nan. “It should be a yatter of starlings. They were having the loveliest yatter you ever heard. Then they flew off—just for no reason in the world. Wonderful, wasn’t it?”
“Quite marvellous,” declared Aunt Phemie.
“Then,” said Nan, “then—I heard her.”
“Who?”
“The buzzard. She was far far away—up over the Dark Wood. There was something disturbing her up there. I saw the wood quite clearly in my mind, and a black collie dog came out of it and slunk along the edge of it, but then he ran down through the field. Then I heard Sandy’s whistle, up in the top field. So you see I was right. But I knew the buzzard would follow. I was watching a blue opening in the grey sky, the blue of paradise. I never saw so lovely a blue. It had a quiet smile, listening—though hardly listening either—to singing I couldn’t hear. Then the buzzard swam out upon the blue——” Nan, who had, with restraint, been miming her story, now raised her arms, described an arc in the air, over-balanced and fell on Aunt Phemie’s legs. She gripped one leg and tried to bite it through the eiderdown.
“Nan, you witch!”
Nan raised herself, her eyes wet and bright with love, looked confused, got up and went out.
Aunt Phemie finished her tea in a gulp, with a reckless feeling that life was at her door, had come into her house. She did not care how or why. She was not going to care. She was going to keep it alive. Strength flooded through her. To have had such a perfect sleep—and nothing to have happened! Now and then, with a slowness, a naturalness beyond understanding, the fates behaved like this. The daffodil came up out of the snow. A feeling of hunger, of miserliness, swept through, Aunt Phemie. With the uneaten biscuit in the saucer, she went downstairs, into the kitchen where Nan was standing at the window, glanced at the clock, exclaimed, said she was famishing, and set about preparing the evening meal. She would not let Nan help, in fact drove her up to her room to rest for a little. And Nan went. When Aunt Phemie thought of her at her bedroom window, she stole up into the vegetable garden where she could command the farm road and a fair stretch of the public highway beyond. For over a minute her eyes anxiously followed a figure on a bicycle. When she saw it was a woman, she turned her back to hide her relief, looked at the leeks and carrots, began pulling the last of the peas and presently had a small heap of them on a cabbage leaf.
After supper, with the dimness of early evening in the kitchen, Aunt Phemie said, “Now, Nan, I’m going to light the lamp for you——”
“I don’t want it lit, thank you.”
“You’re going to bed. The first thing you have got to do, my girl, is get strong.”
“You know fine you’re talking nonsense. If you were as sick of that bed as I am!”
“If you think you can get round me——”
“Boo-hoo!”
“Look, Nan dear. Isn’t it lovely that you are getting well again——”
“That’s right. Preach at me. Have you ever thought how fond Scots people are of preaching? There’s a good touch of it in Ranald. I used to mock him for his grandmother.”
“You would!”
“I did!” She gave a small chortle. “You heard us last night? W
ere you shocked?”
“I was. Wakening me out of my good sleep.”
“Now that I think of it, he was preaching a little last night. But not much. He was very serious.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“He had to tell me that he would give everything up, including me, for his political work. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”
“I’m glad to hear he’s so sensible’”
“Yes, there are times when you would really think he’s Scotch, poor fellow.”
“Nan, you’re a witch and a demon and I’m sorry to have to say it.”
“Ay, it’s sad … Aunt Phemie?”
“Yes?”
“What do you think of Ranald?”
“Think of him?” said Aunt Phemie, getting up. “I think he’s a handsome fellow, with a mind of his own, and clever.”
“Is that all?”
“It’s not bad to be going on with.” She found her long cigarette holder. “He was rapidly perverting me even in that short time—as you can see.”
Nan exclaimed with delight as Aunt Phemie lit her cigarette. “Now you come back to me again. As a little girl, I used to think you the most distinguished person in the world. You can have no idea how I hung on your movements. I can still get the smell of your clothes when you mentioned Paris.”
“Smell?” Aunt Phemie raised her eyebrows.
“That’s it!” cried Nan, acknowledging the slight gesture. “A fragrance of silks and lovely things and wonder.”
“And now the cows and the byre. How the glory has departed!” declared Aunt Phemie, blowing smoke with an amused expression.