"Seems tae me ye'd fit in verra weel wi this lot," says McNab. "It's a peety we're lea'in; we coudae introduced ye tae Lizzy Tarot but she's no here jist the nou."
"Yes, they'd probably get on well," agrees Pat. "Not that I believe in that sort of thing myself, but most people here do. They seem to get a lot of comfort from it, Sandy and Crystal especially. Can you pass me your plate, Carol?"
Since Carol makes no move, Bella hands it over. She is surprised to see that most of the food has disappeared. Intrigued, she glances at McNab. Is he very discreetely chewing? It's hard to tell. Now he takes up his bow again, and after the usual painstaking placement of his massive fingers he brings forth from the fiddle another nerve-jangling series of discords before ending abruptly with a nasty screech.
"Can you actually play that thing?" demands Bella, irritably. "Or do you just torture people with it?"
McNab considers this, scratching at his filthy, unkempt, beard and waggling his big, beetling eyebrows. "Hmm, ah'm no suir, Bella. Lat's see shall we?"
Bella flinches in anticipation, but this time he produces an entirely different sound, slow and dreamy, like someone humming absent-mindedly under his breath, or a sailor, whistling for a wind. After a while it is possible to imagine little snatches of some half-familiar tune rising up out of it, then falling back again, never quite enough to identify, never quite repeated. She begins diffidently to sing, "The river is wide. I can't cross o'er." But it immediately changes, becomes something else.
"It's in there somewhaurs, ah ken that," he mutters. "It's jist a maiter o gittin it oot."
"Oh, go on," laughs Bella. "You can play perfectly well." McNab considers this. "Och well, mebbe anither wee dram wad help." Upending his whisky bottle, he drains it to the dregs and casts it aside, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. For a moment nothing happens, then his eyes grow wide in shocked amazement. "The muse! It's the muse!" he cries. "Ah dae believe its enterin i'tae me!"
Instantly he is on his feet and playing, note-perfect, a wild jig. Not only is he playing but dancing too, bobbing and whirling about and stamping mud in all directions with his big, hobnail boots. "Ah can play! Ah can play!" he cries. "It's a miracle!"
Then, as the music changes seamlessly to a reel and back to another jig, numerous small animals, miniature super-heroes and nursery-rhyme characters of all kinds begin magically to appear from all directions. They dance behind him as he leads them, Pied Piper-like, in and out among the buses and lorries and tents and vans, ducking under washing lines, leaping over puddles and tow-bars, daring them to follow. More, older, children come, and some of the adults now leave what they are doing to watch and eventually join the lengthening procession, sweeping up as they go, the St. Trinian, the ballerina, the executioner with his axe, the belly dancer, the Womble, the two teddy bears and the pantomime horse who, in an uncoordinated trot, takes up the rear.
They have just completed their third circuit of the camp when Bluebell appears in Roz's doorway, wearing her nurse's uniform and triumphantly waving a dolly's feeding bottle. "Look, he's taken the lot!" she cries; and they all crowd in to observe this marvel, even the pantomime horse, who has to be shooed away for lack of room.
This is important, Best Beloved
The little cat remains in the same position as when he was tenderly removed from the road, which is to say, oddly twisted, with his rear half lying on its side, noticeably flattened, and his front half looking as if frozen in the act of trying to stand up. His round, yellow eyes are wide open and unblinking, but he doesn't move or even look at his visitors, only opens and closes his mouth in a sort of soundless meow.
Bluebell, who has kept a ceaseless vigil at the patient's bedside, is ecstatic. "He's had some milk and now he's trying to talk. Isn't that fantastic? I expect he wants some fish."
"Funny looking thing, innit?" says someone. "Bit like you, McNab, all head, hands and feet."
"Och awa!" protests McNab. "It's no like me at aa." But he reaches out diffidently and strokes the matted fur.
CHAPTER FOUR
But while the cat's away —
Standing in the stirrups, Miranda Broadmayne scans the horizon for the spidery outline of the rig. Clearly the thing is well hidden, a matter for mild satisfaction, and in the end it is only the flash of sunlight on someone's windscreen that gives it away. Setting the big bay in roughly the right direction she gives him his head, the springy heather brushing his legs as he picks his way down the hillside. Below in the valley a track appears and she breaks into a trot, heading for a cluster of pines on the other side of a broad, shallow stream, the Winterborne.
Two men come out of the trees to meet her, her husband Michael and her estate manager, John Rook. Both are tall, dark and strong featured and could even be said to have a superficial resemblance, but Michael, looking thoroughly out of place in an Armani suit and tie, has the indoor pallor of the office, the slight plumpness, though he'd never agree, of the business lunch, while Rook is leaner and harder in build and has the high colour of the countryman. Rook is wearing his usual flat cap and stained Barbour jacket and leading his own mount.
"Nice jump," he grunts, as Miranda, rather unnecessarily, clears the Winterborne with several feet to spare.
"She'll break her neck one of these days," grumbles Michael.
Rook steps forward to take the bay's head as Miranda dismounts. She smiles wryly at her husband. "I see you've found some then."
Michael frowns and follows her gaze to his shoes and trouser bottoms, now liberally smeared with darkish grey clay. "Damn! Now I shall have to change. I've little enough time as it is."
Leaving Rook to mind the horses they turn and walk towards the rig, a tripod-like construction some twenty feet high, cunningly concealed among the pines. A pump is noisily spewing out grey water and they have to raise their voices.
"How deep is this one?"
"About the same, apparently. He's talking in excess of a hundred thousand. That's an initial estimate."
Miranda nods with satisfaction. "It just gets better and better!"
"They want two more – to the west, unfortunately – two and four hundred yards. It's getting a little close."
"Close?"
"To Windy Point. It'll be way up near the brow of the hill and there's no cover."
"We'll see what Howard has to say."
"I really wouldn't advise it. Don't forget there's a public footpath up there as well. You'll have dog walkers, joggers, all sorts. And this thing's producing an awful lot of spoil. Just look at it. Someone's bound to spot it eventually, assuming they haven't already."
"Michael, for goodness' sake stop worrying! I've had quite enough angst for one morning."
"Sorry, how was it?"
"Pretty ghastly, she's really taking it hard. I'm all right until I go over there and then she starts me off again."
"What about your uncle?"
"I haven't seen him. He's shut himself away in the boatshed, apparently."
"I suppose I ought to put in an appearance."
"I wouldn't bother. You can't do anything. Think yourself well out of it."
"No news of Bella I suppose?"
Miranda shakes her head. "Gone to earth. She wants to postpone it a week, in case she deigns to pitch up."
"You can't postpone a funeral, surely?"
"Of course not, it's absurd. Anyway, if you want my opinion she won't come. She's probably decided she can't face it and bogged off somewhere until it's over. For once I don't blame her."
Howard Crane is squatting at the foot of the rig, consulting his clipboard and talking to the crew. He stands and touches the brim of his hard hat. "Mrs Broadmayne."
"My husband is worried about all this clay."
The surveyor gestures towards a heap of stony heathland soil. "We'll pull that lot back over it when we've finished. Don't worry."
"And it won't show?"
"No problem."
Miranda turns to Michael. "You see?"
"It's
bound to show a little."
Miranda dismisses the man with a smile. "Michael, this isn't like you, you're always telling me how you have to take risks in business."
"These are rather special circumstances."
"Look, I'm not enjoying this cloak and dagger stuff any more than you, but now we've started we've got to see it through. We're never going to get another chance, you know that. Aunty's bound to take Bella's side; she always does. They'll gang up on us and put a veto on it and that'll be that. As it is, we're lucky Little Miss Fruitcake's gone missing. It may give us a few more days."
Michael shrugs. "Okay, I'll say no more; it's your family. But if you want to keep it out of the Bugle, which I strongly advise, I'd tell them to stay well away from that footpath. Anyway, I've got to go. I've got a meeting at ten and I can't go in this state. D'you want a lift?"
"No, I'll ride back." She calls over her shoulder. "John, I'm going now."
Michael watches the pair of them ride away together, this time splashing, hock deep, across the Winterborne at a gentle walk. Shaking hands with Howard he drives thoughtfully back along the rutted track that leads to the village. Though it is undoubtedly gratifying to know that a multi-million pound asset lies everywhere beneath the Jaguar's wheels he cannot rid himself of a particular image of his sister-in-law: a vengeful, white-faced Fury, as terrifying in defence of her own incomprehensible interests as her mother ever was. There is really no point in trying to outwit her, he reasons. Quite apart from being psychic, she is ten times brighter than either Miranda or himself. A favourite expression of Veronica's comes to mind. "There'll be tears before bedtime," he says aloud. "You mark my words."
As you will have guessed, Best Beloved, I had to research that bit. I had to go into Miranda's time-line for it because, obviously, I wasn't there. It's easy when I was actually on the spot, like in the travellers' camp, because all I've had to do is copy the pertinent bits out of my own time-line and splice them together, but when I wasn't there I've had to go looking in other people's, which would be quite interesting if I had the time, (not Miranda's of course, which is seriously boring) but time is the one thing I haven't got, so I've had to stick mostly to me and just use the other stuff when it's really, really important, like here. I mean, I wouldn't want you to think it's some sort of ego-trip or something. It's not my fault if my life is so much more interesting than theirs. I jolly well wish it wasn't. I wish it was as boring as Miranda's. Well, perhaps not that boring.
Of course, even when I'm there I'm sometimes only there in spirit, but that's all right because the spirit me shows up in the Record too. There's even a dream somewhere later. Well, quite a few dreams actually. Or rather, repeats of the same dream, with variations. Don't you think it's amazing that the Record has dreams? I do. I'm constantly amazed by it. It even has the real dream and the dream you thought you dreamt when you wake up and try to make sense of it and the dream it becomes when you try to tell someone else about it. Oh dear, can you follow all that? It's a bit of a mess, isn't it? I wish I knew how old you'll be when you find this. It would help enormously.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Can I stop now?" pleads Pat, her fingers hooked round the starter button. "I'm worried about the battery."
"Ay, ye micht as weel." McNab is standing on a pile of milk crates, his head and most of his body under Roz's bonnet. He struggles out backwards, liberally smeared with oil and dirt. "There's a guid fat spark ye ken, sae hou dis she no fire?"
"It's all my fault," sighs Pat. "I should have taken her for a spin now and then. She's probably seized up. It must be a year since she last moved."
McNab shakes his head. "It's no that; she's turnin fine. There's naethin wrang that ah can see." He kicks viciously at one of Roz's tyres. "She's jist a stupit, airsewart, foukin' cou, that's aa."
"McNab, really, the children!"
"If only I had my pendulum," says Bella, pensively. "I might be able to do something."
"What sort of pendulum?" asks Bluebell.
"A crystal one ideally. Quartz is best, but just about anything clear and faceted would do. It concentrates the psychic energy."
"I've got a diamond choker," suggests Bluebell. "It's plastic really, of course, but it looks like a diamond. It's got a lovely gold chain. That would make a pendulum, wouldn't it?"
Pat frowns. "Choker? What choker?"
"Natalie gave it me. It came with her comic."
"Humph, I might have guessed. That child's a bad influence. It's a good thing they're going back to London."
"It's only a sort of necklace, Mum. It's to remember her by."
"I can't imagine why you'd want to remember that precocious little madam."
"You just don't like her because —" begins Bluebell.
"Could you fetch it for me, Bluebell?" interjects Bella, swiftly. "It doesn't matter if it's plastic as long as it symbolises crystal. All I have to do is change the incantation."
"Symbols, crystals, incantations," mutters McNab. "Ah dinnae gang for that stuff."
Nevertheless, they all watch fascinated, peering into Roz's dark intestines as Bella dangles the choker first in one place, then another, all the while chanting steadily under her breath.
"Is that a spell?" asks Bluebell, wide eyed.
"There are no such things as spells, Bluebell," says Pat, tartly.
Bella sensibly ignores the remark. She has long since learned to be tolerant of unbelief. "There you are," she says finally. "It's that thing."
"What thing?"
"That thing there, with the pipes, under that other thing."
"The petrol pump? It cannae be that."
Bella shrugs. "Well, that's where the trouble is I can assure you. What you do about it is up to you."
"It might be, Uncle McNab," pleads Bluebell. "You could at least look."
"Och, verra weel, if it'll mak ye happy," says McNab wearily, and leaning far down disconnects the suspect component. "Hmm, turn her ower agin will ye?"
The engine turns, more slowly now, and McNab wriggles so far under the bonnet that Bella feels constrained to catch hold of him by the belt.
"Ah dinnae believe this! There's nae bluidy petrol, dammit! How d'ye expect the thing tae wirk whan there's nae petrol?"
"Of course there's petrol," says Pat indignantly. "It's reading half full."
"There's naethin here I tell ye. The gauge is stack."
They haul McNab out, even redder in the face than usual, and gaze helplessly at each other.
"What on earth am I going to do now?" says Pat, wringing her hands. "The police'll be here tomorrow."
"I could go and get some," volunteers Bella. "Is it far?"
"But I haven't any money," says Pat. "Not till my giro comes. I thought I had at least ten gallons in the tank. How am I going to pay for it?"
McNab thrusts his hands deep into his pockets, producing only a lump of rosin and a few coppers. "Twenty-eight pee," he announces. "Ye can hae that if ye like."
Pat sighs. "That's not going to get us very far."
They all turn to Bella, who shakes her head sadly. "Stony broke I'm afraid." Adding pointedly: "My only asset was the costumes, and all that drink."
Pat appears unconvinced. It's true that even in her present state Bella doesn't look, or sound, like someone with no money. "Surely you've got a credit card or something?" she says.
"No, I'm sorry. I did have, but they wanted it back for some reason."
"Then we'll jist hae tae earn it," sighs McNab, resignedly.
*
"I say, steady on there," cries Bella plaintively. "These damned wellies are giving me blisters and my back's killing me."
McNab, whose short but apparently tireless stride has taken him far ahead, stops and looks back. Despite the glorious spring morning he is wearing his usual grubby green anorak and boat-like hobnail boots. His only concession to the unseasonable heat is a pair of very brief shorts, not only giving the obscene impression that he is trouser-less but revealing the bandiest
, knottedest legs that Bella has ever seen.
"If ye cannae keep up," he snaps. "Ye shoudnae hae come."
"Well I didn't exactly bargain for Carol. Did we have to bring her?"
"Ay, we did."
"Why?"
McNab looks up at her indignantly, his head on one side. "D'ye hae a boyfriend, Bella?"
"Yes thank you," says Bella, guardedly. "What's that got to do with it?"
"An' if he wis here, wad ye no want him alang?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so."
"Then hou's Carol ony different, hmm?"
"Er, no reason, I suppose," says Bella, chastened.
"Onyweys," he snaps, "ah need her for ma wark."
"Well how about if you carry her for a bit then? Because I've just about had it."
McNab sighs and looks around. They have toiled the five miles into town and are now in a busy pedestrian precinct, close by the entrance to Woolworths. Shoppers laden with carrier bags and office workers on their lunch-break jostle by. "Och, ah daursay this'll dae weel eneuch," he grumbles, and without warning he drops to the ground, crouching against the glass shopfront. "Gie'er doun then."
Nothing loath, Bella eases Carol down beside him, grateful to stretch her aching back.
"Git the wecht aff yer feet," says McNab, patting the pavement.
"No thank you."
"Suit y'sel." Plunging into the capacious interior of his anorak, McNab produces his now familiar Glenfiddich bottle and drinks deep.
"What is that stuff, anyway? It's not really Scotch, is it?"
McNab shakes his head. "Ah shoud be sae lucky." He wipes the neck with his sleeve. "Want a wet?"
"No thank you."
"Suit y'sel." He settles himself more comfortably and gazes critically at the passing scene. "Och weel, there's a geary leuk tae this lot onyweys. Shoud be guid for a few poonds."
Bella shuffles restlessly. "When are we going to start?"
"We?"
"You, then."
"Ah hae tae wait."
Isabella: A sort of romance Page 6