On the Edge of Darkness

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Hello?’ She stopped, puzzled. ‘Can I help you?’

  He turned. He was tall, white-haired, perhaps in his mid-seventies, a strikingly handsome man. She recognised him at once. The portrait of her grandfather as a young man had hung in Liza’s studio; she had had many offers to buy it but had always resolutely refused to sell. Almost cruel in its brutal reality it had fascinated and terrified Beth for as long as she could remember.

  ‘Beth?’ The old man had a strong voice, but something in his manner worried her. ‘I’m Adam Craig.’

  She smiled uncertainly, thrown by such a formal introduction, then she moved forward. ‘Grandfather.’ She reached up to kiss his cheek.

  ‘I came looking for your grandmother. I went to the farmhouse.’

  ‘She sold it.’ Beth hesitated. ‘You knew she had remarried?’

  He nodded abruptly. ‘The people at the farmhouse told me. They also told me you were up here alone.’

  ‘I like being alone.’ She had not intended to sound so defensive. ‘I have my work.’ She felt uncomfortable and wasn’t sure what to do. This, after all, was the man who had refused to see her for almost all her life, who blamed her, or so she had always suspected though she could never guess why he should do so, for his son’s, her father’s, death. ‘Will you come inside? I could make you some tea or coffee.’ He was an alcoholic, she remembered that much about him. Shortly after Liza’s last visit to him in St Albans a few years before, he had sold the house and disappeared. No one had heard from him since. She remembered how hurt Liza had been.

  He sighed. ‘Thank you, lass. I should like that.’ She could detect the Scots accent now. Faint, but definitely there.

  He followed her into the house and stood looking round. She had brought a few of her favourite things up from the farmhouse: the small black oak Welsh dresser, two Windsor chairs which had stood in the kitchen, her own bed, some antique tables, a chest of drawers. The rest of the stuff had been sold or gone with Liza to Italy. She had made her studio in an old byre at the back of the cottage: as a family they were obviously destined to be barn painters.

  ‘Please, sit down.’ She filled the kettle and put it on the Rayburn. ‘I’ve been down in Hay. The publisher of the book I illustrated came up from London today to discuss doing another one.’

  ‘You’re a painter too, like your grandmother?’ He seemed surprised.

  She nodded. Ducking outside the back door she gathered an armful of blocks from the pile stacked up against the wall of the byre. Coming back in she threw them into the fireplace and knelt to build them into a pyramid over a fire-lighter.

  ‘I don’t think I even know where you’re living these days?’ she said as lightly as she could. He was still standing in the middle of the floor, staring round.

  ‘I went back to Scotland, where I was born and brought up.’

  ‘Really?’ She swivelled on her heels and looked up at him. ‘How long have you been there?’

  He shrugged. ‘A couple of years. I went to America after I sold the house in St Albans. I travelled around a lot. Then I went to Scotland – to Pittenross.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘I visited the minister when I was there and he told me about a cottage for sale up on the hill and in the end I bought it.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Scotland.’ The kettle had begun to whistle. She reached for the pot, warming on the back of the stove, and spooned in some tea. ‘But strangely enough this morning I was asked if I would go there to do some work.’

  ‘It’s very beautiful.’ He sat down at last. ‘Is Liza happy?’ The abruptness of the question startled her.

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced at him. ‘She’s very happy.’

  ‘And she still paints her portraits?’

  ‘Of course. She could never stop that.’

  ‘Does she come over at all?’

  Beth nodded. ‘Several times a year. They go and stay at an old manor house hotel down in the next village for three or four weeks each time they come.’

  ‘And you say you’re not lonely up here?’

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘I love my own company.’

  ‘No boyfriend?’ His eyes were suddenly piercing.

  ‘From time to time.’ She paused, a sudden lump in her throat. ‘Nothing serious. Nothing at the moment.’ She found she didn’t resent his questions; perhaps a grandfather had the right to ask them.

  He nodded. ‘And the chap who used to live here. Meryn. What happened to him?’ She looked up from pouring the tea. There had been a subtle change in the tone of the question. Where the rest had been casual this one, amongst them all, mattered to him.

  She shook her head. ‘I am sorry. I don’t know. He used to come and go. I haven’t seen him since I moved in.’

  ‘But you have his address?’

  She shook her head again. ‘I don’t. Only that of his solicitor in Cardiff.’ She hesitated. ‘Was it important?’

  He shrugged his shoulders and stood up again, pacing restlessly up and down the carpet. ‘Your grandmother, Liza, had a lot of time for the chap. He seems to have been very wise.’

  ‘He was lovely. My parents spent their honeymoon in this cottage, you know. I like that. It seems to bring them closer, somehow.’ She passed him a cup and offered him some sugar. ‘When I was little I used to call him Merlin. I thought he was a wizard.’

  Adam looked at her hard. ‘And was he?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was a man of mystery. I’ve no idea what he did for a living. If anything. He dropped the price of the cottage by half when he heard I wanted to buy it. It was almost a present. I had the feeling that maybe he went to live abroad. I wondered sometimes if he was in love with Granny Liza, but I never found out.’

  ‘Will you give me the name and address of his solicitors?’ He put the cup down untouched and strode to the window. ‘Maybe I can reach him that way.’

  ‘Why did you want to speak to him?’ She felt saddened suddenly. He hadn’t come to see her at all.

  He shook his head. ‘I thought maybe he could help me with something, that’s all. Not important.’ He didn’t meet her eye. ‘I’d like your grandmother’s phone number too, if you think she wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Of course she wouldn’t. She was desperately sad when you left St Albans without telling her where you’d gone.’

  ‘I did that for a reason. She knew why.’ He sat down again, sipping his tea. He was staring into the fire abstractedly and didn’t seem to notice when she sat down opposite him, but after a moment he said, ‘You look like Liza. She was very beautiful when she was young.’

  ‘She still is.’ Beth was Liza’s greatest fan. She smiled at him. ‘And I’ll take that as a great compliment. Thank you.’

  He almost smiled. ‘She is all right?’

  ‘She’s fine.’ Beth paused. ‘Why don’t I ring her now? She’d love to hear from you.’

  ‘No!’ He stood up, agitated. ‘No, I don’t want to make the connection. Not from here.’

  ‘Why not? Grandfather, what’s wrong?’

  His manner had suddenly changed and his hand, as he put down his cup, suddenly trembled so that it rattled in the saucer. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Grandfather. Please. Stay. You can stay here. I have a spare room …’

  ‘No! I have to go. I shouldn’t have come.’ He looked round distractedly. ‘Tell your grandmother to be careful.’

  ‘I will. Grandfather, what’s wrong? Is it something to do with Liza? Please, let me ring her.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have come,’ he repeated. ‘Forget you saw me. Don’t tell her I was here.’

  ‘But I must.’

  ‘No. No. Say nothing.’

  He made suddenly for the door and pulled it open, ducking out into the dusk. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry. It was a mistake.’ He was muttering under his breath.

  ‘Then at least give me your address. Your phone number …’

  ‘No.’ He groped in his pocket f
or his car keys. ‘This was stupid. Selfish. Idiotic! No. Don’t let her come after me. Just forget I was here.’

  He climbed into his car and shut the door with a slam. As she stood, watching helplessly, he started the engine and backed the car round to face the track. For a moment she thought he was going to drive off without a word, but he wound down the window as he started to let in the clutch. ‘God bless you, Beth, my dear. I wish I’d known you. I was a stubborn, silly old man, but I had my reasons for staying away, believe me. Just forget you saw me now.’

  And he had gone, pushing the car along the track far faster than was sensible. She winced as she saw it ground on a ridge, then he was out of sight.

  She walked back into the house slowly and shut the door behind her. He had left a strange atmosphere behind him. She frowned, and then did something she had never done before. She turned and bolted the door. Then she reached for the phone.

  ‘Michele? Come stai? Can I speak to Liza please?’

  His answer was long, affectionate, detailed and negative.

  She gave a small sad laugh. ‘Does she often go off on her own like that with no number or anything?’

  She was apparently painting a family of wine growers somewhere in the Abruzzi.

  ‘It was part of our agreement, carissima, so she would not feel trapped and owned by her terrible chauvinist husband.’ He sighed, only half humorously.

  ‘But I need her.’ She did not mean it to sound quite so desperate.

  ‘So do I, Beth.’ Suddenly he picked up on the tone of her voice. ‘What is wrong? Is it something I can help with? Do you want me to come over?’

  She smiled, her eyes filling with tears. ‘No. Bless you, Michele, but no. There’s nothing wrong. Just silly female stuff.’

  Like intuition. And loneliness. And fear.

  It was later, after she had made herself a boiled egg and toast and had sat down with a mug of hot chocolate to watch a Jane Austen dramatisation on the television, that she remembered Liza telling her that Pittenross was in the mountains.

  These are my mountains …

  She murmured the phrase to herself, her eyes glued to the drawing room of a beautiful Georgian house in Hampshire with its complement of elegant guests engaged in dextrous verbal sparring, a distraction from her whirling thoughts. Adam Craig had intrigued, unsettled and – a little – frightened her. She could not get him out of her head. What was it he had really come to say to her? Or rather to Meryn, for he hadn’t meant to come to see Beth at all, that much was clear. And what was he afraid of?

  She puzzled over it for most of the evening, when she wasn’t thinking about Robert Cassie’s offer. Then the two came together with sudden blinding inevitability.

  She could not make up her mind about Robert’s offer unless she had been to Scotland herself and assessed its potential as a subject for her talents. After all, she did not have to see Giles again to do it. She need not even tell him she was going. And if she was there anyway, surely she would be able to locate Adam Craig’s cottage and find out why he was so afraid of renewing his contact with his family. Over the years he had been an enigmatic stranger in her life. A grandfather who did not want to know her. A man who had, Liza had confessed, been her lover. A doctor. A brilliant, competent, intelligent man who had become an alcoholic and who had suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. And now, having come all the way to Wales to find Meryn, he had run away again. There was no other word for it; he had fled. And Beth wanted to know why.

  The hotel was Scottish baronial – a cross between St Pancras Station and Inveraray Castle with a touch of the Taj Mahal thrown in. Beth stared open-mouthed as her taxi pulled round the bend in the drive. Then she found herself smiling. It was the most amazing, wonderful outrageous piece of architecture she had ever seen. The taxi pulled up on the gravel near the front door and she climbed out to be greeted by four dogs pouring out of the front door, tails wagging.

  ‘Beth?’ The short, plump sandy-haired man who followed the dogs held out his arms in welcome. ‘Giles told me to expect you about now. Welcome to Loch Dubh. This is my wife, Patti.’

  An equally plump woman had followed him out. Dressed in blue jeans and a thick Fair Isle sweater, she had long white-blonde hair barely contained in a fat disorganised plait. She gave Beth a hug as though she had known her for years. ‘Giles is coming later if you say he can. He is contrite and abject and swears to be good. Isn’t that what he said to say?’ she threw over her shoulder at her husband.

  He guffawed. ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything!’ He swooped on Beth’s cases. ‘I’ve been ordered to give you the best room, the best food, anything you want. Your wish is our command. The place is fairly empty at the moment, so to be honest, we can wait on your every whim till you are sick of us, so say so if you want to be alone!’ His eyes twinkled irresistibly. ‘You may also borrow my car. Giles said to hire you one and he would pay, but I’ll relieve the old bugger of that expense at least. We don’t need two most of the time, so it’s yours whenever you need it. Come in, let me show you where everything is.’

  She wasn’t entirely sure how she had got to Scotland so quickly; a phone call to Robert Cassie, a toing and froing of cautious messages with Giles, who, it appeared, did have to know all about her visit, and it was all fixed. Giles, she discovered, had known Dave and Patti Andrews when they lived in London. They would look after her. They were, she suspected very quickly, one of the reasons Giles had chosen to centre the book on this particular area.

  Her bedroom was huge. The black oak four-poster looked big enough to sleep four and the view was of green rolling gardens, hillside and heather, leading down to the small loch from which the hotel took its name and beyond it the hills.

  ‘And your bathroom is in here.’ Dave threw open another door and revealed a room almost as big again, in the centre of which stood a vast bath with four clawed feet. ‘Don’t be alarmed by the colour of the water. It’s peat not rust!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Bar’s open as soon as you want to come down and then just treat it all as home.’ With a grin he withdrew, leaving her to get her breath back and unpack.

  She did not bargain on finding Giles downstairs waiting for her. At the sight of her face he raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Don’t shoot, please.’

  He had lost weight since she had seen him last, and was looking even more handsome than she remembered. She stamped sternly on the leap of excitement and longing which took her completely unawares and concentrated instead on a fierce frown. ‘I didn’t think you were coming up here yet.’

  ‘I wasn’t. But I needed to talk to you. Please. Just about the book. We have to do it. Did Robert tell you the kind of advance they are going to pay?’

  ‘He told me.’ She kept her voice as even as possible. ‘Where is Idina?’

  ‘In London.’ He frowned. ‘Please, Beth. Can we talk as friends and colleagues? No strings.’

  Somehow she managed it.

  With a tight rein on her emotions she forced herself to concentrate on the folder of notes Giles produced as they sat down in the hotel’s cosy sitting room whilst Patti and Dave cooked supper. They weren’t alone. Nearby there were other guests: a couple of middle-aged women were giggling over some photographs on the sofa, and an elderly man who had earlier walked the moors with a gun was dozing over a tumbler of the local malt.

  ‘You see? The local history is wonderful. We follow the same format as The Black Mountains exactly. Some history, some legend. Local birds and animals. Start with the geology. And there are some fabulous castles here, both nineteenth-century baronial and the real thing. And ruinous ruins!’ His enthusiasm was as usual infectious and she felt her own excitement rising. ‘You can base yourself here if you want to, as long and as often as you wish. Did Dave tell you? He always has rooms free even in high season, and for a friend he won’t charge.’

  ‘He’s never going to grow rich on that philosophy.’ She was leafing through Giles’s notes.

 
; ‘He’s been rich. He didn’t like it!’ Giles grinned at her. ‘Didn’t they tell you their story? They came up here to live out a dream.’

  ‘And did it come true?’ She glanced up at him. For a moment he met her eye and she felt the spark leap between them. Hastily she looked away.

  ‘Do dreams ever come true?’ he replied quietly. ‘I think they’re very happy here. Perhaps that is enough to ask.’

  She ignored the message he was trying to convey. ‘They certainly look it,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s strange, but though I don’t know Scotland at all, my grandfather was born and brought up less than an hour’s drive from here.’ She was gabbling too fast and she knew it, as she told him the story – as much as she knew – of Adam’s childhood and his life, anything to keep from talking about themselves. It was with something like relief that she looked up as Patti came in, her face shiny with heat from the kitchen, and announced that dinner was ready.

  The guests climbed to their feet.

  ‘You must meet my grandfather,’ Beth said quietly as they went into the dining room behind the two women guests. It had occurred to her suddenly that Giles was an excuse to visit him – her grandfather must know a lot about local history – and also that she would be less afraid if Giles was with her. What she was afraid of she was not quite sure. The old man had been brusque and even a little strange, not intimidating in any way; but there was something in the air around him which had made her skin prickle with tension.

  They talked for a long time, then at last she stood up. Giles was still drinking his coffee. ‘I’m going up now,’ she announced firmly. It was a moment part of her had been dreading. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

  He looked up and gave her a lop-sided, contrite grin. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to sleep alone?’

  It was said half jokingly, and so quietly no one else in the room could hear, but even so she glanced round, embarrassed. ‘Giles, you promised!’

  ‘Sorry.’ He raised his hands again.