His sons thudded downstairs in stockinged feet. He felt himself whiten, with that pinched feeling round his nose. Frances was flanked by them. He tried not to mind Jack’s guarded coolness, his ‘Hi there’, when Frances said ‘It’s your father’, as if they might not otherwise recognise him. Catching Andrew’s embarrassed flush, he knew there was no question of that. Andrew knew him. Then Frances said ‘Come in,’ and pushed open the living-room door. That was it, the moment of reunion come and gone. The boys followed their parents into the room.
Frances’s family closed like a shield around her. In the warm living-room, with newspapers, chocolate boxes, and unwrapped presents scattered about and a jigsaw just begun on the table by the window, Jim and Grace Douglas sat side by side on the sofa. They looked up in astonishment over the tops of their spectacles, their jaws not dropping, they were too much in control of themselves for that, but taken aback, oh yes. There was a small measure of satisfaction in the utter surprise of his arrival. He could tell Kate did not feel the same and his instinct when the first moment was over, everyone getting to their feet, Jim even shaking him by the hand (his an old, dry hand now, but just as firm a grip), was to protect her. He stepped back to where she hesitated by the door and put his arm lightly round her shoulders.
‘I’ve brought Kate with me,’ he said. ‘Frozen stiff I’m afraid – car heater wasn’t working too well.’
Whatever they might have said to him on his own, they would be nothing but welcoming to Kate, their lost third grandchild whose birthday presents, perhaps they now realised, were always a year or so too young for the age she had reached.
‘Come away, Katy,’ Grace Douglas said, using the name she had when she was removed from them. ‘Get yourself nice and warm by this fire. Would you like a hot drink?’
‘Cold drink would go down well too, I think,’ Jim said, lifting the bottle of malt whisky. His demeanour suggested there were occasions when it was called for. Alec was no longer in any way their responsibility, so they need not mind whether he had a drink now.
In this festive room all green and gold, by a log fire, they might have been old friends having a dram.
Kate huddled silent on an arm-chair, still wearing her black coat, hair falling forward over her face in two soft concealing wings. She’ll think I’ve been lying to her, Alec realised with amusement. I’ve been telling her how much they all hate me. ‘Expect to be met with a shotgun,’ he had said. ‘On Christmas Day?’ she had protested, scornful. ‘Especially on Christmas Day.’
While the whisky pouring was going on Frances retreated with Gillian to the kitchen. Jack eyed Kate but Andrew stared at the floor, glancing up now and again at the little group his grandparents and father made as they talked about the weather and the journey, the state of the roads.
‘Well,’ Grace said, bewildered but determined to keep a conversation going, ‘Are you staying? I don’t know where Frances can put you – she’s got a full house.’
‘The floor would be fine,’ Alec said. ‘We can sort something else out tomorrow – a pub maybe.’
‘A pub?’ Grace raised her fine eyebrows.
‘You’re planning to stay a while, then?’ Jim asked, raising his glass and swirling the whisky round.
Alec gulped his, grateful for the injection of alcohol. ‘No fixed plans. You know how it is,’ he said, realising they did not.
They sustained the evening with remarkable composure. Everyone behaved well. Only Frances had let him see the edge of her anger, if that’s what it was. The boxroom, the cold, the sleeping bag smelling stale from long storage in the loft, her curt ‘Goodnight’. What else could he expect, landing without warning? Frances liked to be well prepared and in control, which was why he had done it like this. Well, he had been left with no choice in the end.
Along the hall, Kate slept in the pullout bed in Andrew’s room. On his own bed, made up with fresh linen but still somehow redolent of Andrew, Gillian lay awake for a long time. Kate had taken the first opportunity to go to bed, disappearing into the bathroom for half an hour, then being found asleep when Gillian eventually retreated from Frances’s room where they had been talking for an hour. Perhaps tomorrow she would have the chance to get to know her niece. At first when she lay down her head was full of what was happening, her reaction to seeing Alec, everyone’s reaction, the keen excitement of the utterly unexpected. She thought Alec had worn well, he was that sort, thin and dark, looking gaunt as they get older but still attractive. It was odd, she reflected, curling herself up cosily in the single bed, seeing Alec again in this objective way. All the old emotion seemed to have evaporated. Not that much of it had been hers, beyond the hurt she had felt for Frances. What she had felt for Susan was more complex. She had only a sense of emptiness now, thinking of her other sister.
Alec was not Gillian’s type, that was one good thing, so she could be objective. Anyway, you didn’t have to see every man as a potential lover, surely to God. She had been telling herself that for years.
She had followed Frances up to bed, and Frances had gratefully welcomed her in so that they could huddle together side by side under the duvet, talking.
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Frances said. ‘I’ll never get to sleep anyway.’
‘Are you Ok? What a shock, eh?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Everybody’s behaving so well, aren’t they? I suppose Dad’s past socking anybody on the jaw now.’
‘It’s a bit late for that. Not that he’d ever have done such a thing.’
‘Mm. He felt like it once. How long is it – fifteen years?’
‘Thirteen. Katy wasn’t even two years old.’
They focused on Kate.
‘Why has he brought her with him, did he say?’
‘Only that he wants to talk to me when you’ve all gone home. I got the impression it was about Katy.’
‘Not. … Susan.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘She didn’t come. She hasn’t changed, then.’
‘I said – I don’t know.’
‘So is he staying for a while?’
‘Not with me,’ Frances said firmly.
‘It is a bit much,’ Gillian admitted, ‘turning up on Christmas Day out of the blue. I mean, you couldn’t very well turn them away, could you?’
‘I did think of it.’
‘Not Katy – ’
‘Well, there you are. Maybe that’s why he brought her.’ Frances shook her head. ‘Oh Gill.’
‘You’re not Ok. How do you feel – about him?’
‘Numb.’
‘Do you still hate him?’
‘No, not for years. Just numb, as I said.’
‘He’ll go away quite soon, he’ll have to. Then everything will just go back to the way it was.’
They contemplated the fatuousness of this in silence for a moment. That was like Frances, to leave the idiotic thing you had said hanging in the air. Maybe, thought Gillian with such force it seemed like an insight, she did that to Alec too. Maybe she made him feel inadequate. I wonder if he’s still such a drunk? She stopped, conscious of Frances in blue pyjamas beside her, hugging her knees. Then Frances reached up and began to take the pins out of her hair, so that its dark blonde and silver coil unfolded slowly and spread over her shoulders and back. Her face seemed to alter as she did so and in the lamplight grew softer and younger.
‘I must do something about this,’ she said, pushing her fingers through her hair. ‘It’s all right when I have it up, but old women with long hair … very unattractive.’
‘You’re not old,’ Gillian protested, ‘and your hair is beautiful.’
‘My face isn’t!’ Frances gave a rueful laugh. ‘Oh dear, what does it matter? Usually I don’t even think about that sort of thing.’
‘I do,’ Gillian sighed.
Frances contemplated her darker, slighter sister, the cropped hair and stylish clothes, the pretty, smooth face, eyes mournful and large at the thought
of youth sliding away from her. Gillian always wanted to be thought young, and was lucky she looked it.
‘I wonder what he wants,’ Gillian mused, reverting to Alec.
‘Goodness knows,’ Frances said, cool now. ‘Nothing he does ever quite adds up, or it never used to. I doubt if anything’s changed.’
‘What about tomorrow – we were all going up to the Ramsays, weren’t we? Will we take Alec and Katy with us?’
For the first time, Frances looked nonplussed. ‘I’d forgotten all about it. I suppose we’ll have to.’ She laughed. ‘Oh dear, Gill, I’m glad you’re here. Don’t leave me alone with Dad, will you?’
Gillian smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll protect you all day tomorrow, then whisk them away early on the 27th.’ She nudged her sister. ‘Hey, what if we get snowed in and have to stay for weeks? All of us?’
Instinctively, they both turned to the curtained window. Gillian got out of the bed and went to draw the curtain back, looking down into the lane. The roof of Alec’s car glittered with frost, but it was a dry night.
‘No more snow. Panic over.’ She dropped the curtain.
‘You’d better go to bed,’ Frances said, lying back on her pillows. ‘Heating’s off – it’s getting cold in here.’ Gill paused by the door, as if she was trying to say something else. ‘Go to bed,’ Frances repeated. ‘Enough talking for one day.’
Going over this in her head, listening to Kate’s snuffly breathing, Gillian grew drowsy, and fell into dreams.
In the small spare bedroom, which held only bed, dressing table and chair, Jim and Grace Douglas talked in low voices for a long time.
‘Well,’ Grace said in the end, ‘after all these years maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt. He seems to care for Katy at any rate. And Susan – well, she was always a very strong willed girl.’
‘Ach.’ Her husband turned away from her, preparing to sleep. ‘Are you putting the light out, or what?’
Grace sighed, rearranging her pillows (beds away from home were never quite right) and switched off the bedside lamp.
Alec woke at four, thoroughly chilled, and thought immediately, ‘Frances is still stunning. Still a beautiful woman.’
4
On the morning of the 27th Gillian set off to drive her parents back to Aberdeen. While she packed, Jim went out to remove all traces of frost and ice from the car windows. He refused lock de-icer and warm water (Frances’s usual shortcuts) and it took him some time to get the doors open. The air was misty with cold and Dingwall below was lost in a greyish haze, but overhead the sky was brightening to blue.
Frances stayed outside to help her father. The boys and Kate were still in bed; her mother was nursing a cold; Gill was in the shower. Alex had not appeared, from tact or nervousness.
‘Now then,’ her father said, wrenching the driver’s door open at last, ‘we’ll get the engine warmed up.’
‘What about windscreen wash?’ Frances asked. ‘Maybe we should check that first.’
He paused, thwarted. Instead of answering, he said, ‘So what’s he up to?’
‘Who?’
She had avoided being alone with her father till now. Boxing Day had been eased by the long buffet lunch at the Ramsays, an annual event gathering of neighbours. The Douglases had an old connection with Pat Ramsay’s parents, and felt welcome there and comfortable.
‘Alec. Your once-upon-a-time husband. What’s he up to?’
‘He’s not my anything now, Dad.’
‘He’s here, though. Shot out of the blue, was it?’ He glowered at her, suspicious.
‘Yes. He rang on Christmas morning. I said not to come just yet, but he turned up anyway. Because of Katy, it seems.’
‘What’s wrong with Katy? Nothing a good talking-to wouldn’t cure. Why do they wear black, these girls? You’d think they were forever going to funerals.’
‘It’s just the fashion,’ Frances said. She leaned past her father and released the catch for the car bonnet. ‘I’ll check the water.’
‘But he’s after something, don’t tell me he’s not. When’s he ever made an effort before? Brought Katy to visit you? Never.’
He did not mention Susan, Frances noted. No-one said her name. Even Gillian and she, out of earshot of everyone else, had shied away from talking about her. It was a measure perhaps of the force she still exerted. Or was it like naming a curse, bad luck?
I might have some of that screenwash stuff in the shed,’ Frances said. ‘I’ll look.’
When she came back, her father was polishing the back window, unnecessarily, since he had already cleared it, and the sun was shining now, softening the film of frost on the bodywork. A moment later, Frances slammed down the bonnet and he got into the car. The engine started without protest so he got out, leaving it running. Behind the car, the exhaust emission condensed in the air. They stood side by side, Frances with the bottle of screenwash in one hand, the kettle in the other.
‘They’re good cars,’ she observed. ‘Gill says it never lets her down.’
‘Prefer British made myself. Or French,’ he conceded. ‘Auld Alliance. But not German, not Japanese.’
What an unforgiving crew we are, Frances thought, the irony not lost on her.
‘You take care of yourself and the boys,’ her father said abruptly. ‘You can’t have him waltzing back now. Even if he is their father.’
‘Oh there’s no question of that.’
‘Maybe not. Let me know, Frances, you hear me? Any help you need …’
‘I know, Dad. Thanks.’ She sighed, leaning her head for a moment towards his shoulder. ‘It’s a bit awkward, that’s all. Not for me. He’s like a stranger, thank God. But the boys and Katy. I feel for them.’ She bit her lip. ‘Dad, Susan hasn’t been in touch, has she? With you and Mum?’
‘Not a word. Ask your mother. There’s usually a Christmas card but he signs it. Not her.’
‘You get a card?’
‘Not this year I think. Ask your mother.’
Even this, so small and harmless a thing, gave her a stab of – what – jealousy? Of course not. She wanted Susan to be in touch with her parents. It was Susan who had made contact impossible.
‘Let’s go and see if Gill’s ready.’
‘And when is she going to settle down?’ her father grumbled. ‘Left it a bit late for having a family. Though they don’t care nowadays – wait till they’re middle-aged, some of them.’
This was an old grievance, hardly meriting a response. ‘Oh well,’ she murmured, ‘Gill’s happy the way she is.’ Not true, though.
Dressed but unshaven, Alec appeared just as they were leaving, to shake hands and be polite. As the car crept down the icy lane he vanished into the bathroom.
Frances meant to strip beds and restore her home to order but the house was still full of other people, so she found herself wandering about distractedly, achieving nothing. In the end, she stuffed some towels in the washing machine and abandoned all other pretence at housework. Instead, she made coffee and stood for a while at the living-room window, looking down the garden and across the fields to Dingwall, clearer now in the distance. Behind the long building of the Academy and a scatter of houses on the hillside, rose Ben Wyvis, snow covered. For a while she went on watching this stillness, where all that moved were specks of flying gulls or crows, to and fro across the landscape.
‘You’ve got a great view.’
It was Alec, shaved and wearing jeans and a fine-knit pullover. He joined her by the window at a cautious distance.
‘I love it,’ she said.
‘Your mother says you’re a headmistress now, is that right?’
She told him the name of the school. ‘It’s tiny,’ she said, ‘just two and a half teachers. The head teacher’s post came up before the summer, and I was ready for a change.’
‘You like it?’
‘It’s a lovely wee school. Nice kids, very rural. A change from Alness.’
‘That was a bit grim, was
it?’
‘No, just a tougher place to be. To be a child in.’
‘Right.’
‘What about you?’ She turned to face him with such directness she surprised herself, and he, startled, was compelled to meet her eyes. The rush of recognition, the electric charge of it, her blue eyes, his brown, the naked knowledge they had had of each other once: these things made the blood well to her face and to his, so that unable to bear it, they turned to look at the view again.
‘Oh, I’m doing all right. Dryburn’s made me redundant years ago – did I tell you when you came down that time with the boys? Anyway, I was ready for a change. I’ve a part share in a restaurant now, in the centre of Newcastle.’
‘A restaurant?’
‘Nice place – hard work though.’
‘What do you do in it – not cook?’
He laughed. ‘No, not that. Manage. Finance, staff, marketing, the works.’
Frances was silent, finding it hard to imagine his life.
‘Any chance of a coffee?’ he asked.
‘Sure. Would you like some breakfast?’
‘Coffee’s fine.’
As she rinsed mugs and filled the kettle he said, ‘It’s very good of you to have us here.’
‘I didn’t seem to have a choice.’
‘I do appreciate it.’
He was much less sure of himself these days, she realised as a shaft of sunshine caught his face, showing the pitiless lines, tired round his eyes, the skin dull with being indoors too much. The life had gone out of him. Was he drinking still, she wondered. Hard not to, in his business, but he had not drunk much since his arrival, even yesterday at the Ramsays when it would have been easy.
‘Sit down,’ Frances said. ‘I’ll make some toast.’
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