A Pinch of Salt

by Eileen Ramsay

  ‘It’s time we grew up, isn’t it, Ruaridh?’

  ‘God, no. Wouldn’t it be nice to stay like this for ever and ever? Me sitting here, wanting to kiss you and you holding up your face so trustingly to be kissed.’

  Holly leaned closer across the table. She could see herself mirrored in his eyes. Her whole body was crying out, please, please, but for what? At last, at last, his lips touched hers, so softly and gently. She had closed her eyes. Had she been brushed by a butterfly’s wing or was she herself the moth struggling against the power of the candle flame? She did not know; she did not care.

  ‘Oh, Ruaridh, I love you so.’

  He drew back. ‘Holly, Holly, I could take such dreadful advantage of you. Come on, before I forget I was born a gentleman. I’ll take you to your bus stop.’

  Her heart sank. She had not wanted the evening to end. She wanted to feel his lips on hers again, to hear his beautiful voice saying her name. She was going to cry. How stupid, how dreadfully stupid. One little kiss and she had told him that she loved him. Where had all her sophistication gone?

  ‘No,’ she stammered. ‘I’ll manage.’

  But he was beside her, helping her on with her coat. It was still raining. At the bus stop he sheltered her against him. Please let me stand here for ever, she thought. The bus came.

  ‘Goodnight, funny little Holly. I’m awfully fond of you too.’

  She was on the bus, her hand pressed to her lips to hold the kiss he had left there. Had he kissed her again? He had, he had. Dear God, she would die of happiness. I’m awfully fond of you too. He loved her. He loved her. Ruaridh loved her; hadn’t he said so? She was still holding his handkerchief and she pressed it against her face.

  ‘Are ye planning to pay yer fare, lassie?’

  The conductress brought her back to earth with a bump. Holly handed her a half crown.

  ‘Keep the change,’ she said grandly.

  30

  ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE it.’ Kate put the letter down on the table and frowned at it as if the bad news it contained was the fault of the paper and not the writer.

  Ian waited for a moment and then, since evidently she was too upset to say more, asked gently, ‘What’s she up to now, sweetheart?’ He had brought the letters in from the mat in the hall and had seen the all-too-infrequent handwriting.

  ‘She’s not coming for Christmas. How could she? She knows how much Christmas means to you.’ She was still sitting, looking down at the offending sheet of paper.

  ‘But I don’t mean anything to Holly, dear, and why should I? My feelings don’t come into this. Christmas for me will be wonderful since you’re part of it. Knowing you’re unhappy will take some of the fun away. Are you going to tell me why?’

  Kate handed over the paper. ‘She’s in love; I knew that in the summer.’

  Ian hunted around for a few minutes.

  ‘They’re on the fireplace, beside your newspaper.’ Kate smiled. Ian was a neat and tidy and well-organized person but he could never remember where he had left his glasses. She could see them now, staring balefully at their owner from the sports section of the local paper.

  ‘When I forget why I waited so patiently to marry you, Kate Robertson, I only have to have you find my specs.’ He retrieved them and read the letter.

  ‘Be happy for her, Kate. Her own happiness spills out of this.’

  ‘I know you won’t be disappointed for, after all, you have Ian,’ Holly had written.

  Disappointed, Kate had not seen Holly since her grand-daughter had returned to the university at the beginning of October. I always want everything, Kate thought sadly. Ian should be enough for any woman, but . . . Holly. Holly, her heart cried the name silently and she could feel that awful pain in the very centre of her being that no patented medicine could reach. Failure, failure. She looked at her husband who was rereading the letter. With everyone but him, she thought, and a small flicker of flame began to melt the ice that had gripped her heart.

  ‘We should be happy for her, dear,’ said Ian again. ‘We’ll think of her sitting at the Watchnight service in St Giles with this Adonis of hers and we’ll be glad.’

  ‘It’s really the very first time he has asked me out with just him,’ Holly had written. ‘We go everywhere together, Anne and dear old Gairn, who is a bit like Ian, Ruaridh, and me. Every Friday we go to the Scottish National Orchestra Concert in the Usher Hall. Anne and Ruaridh are very wealthy but we all climb up to the gods because Gairn has to watch his expenses. I love classical music, the flute especially. Ruaridh plays the flute.’

  ‘Says it all, doesn’t it, Kate dear. Ruaridh plays the flute.’

  ‘I’m afraid of wealthy boys who play the flute.’

  ‘It’s because you’ve never met one before. Courting a young lady by lying on the grass playing the flute sounds a bit medieval to me. Used to take all my women to Murrayfield to watch rugby.’

  Kate, who had never watched a rugby match in her life, laughed. ‘Just as well I wasn’t a bright young thing.’

  ‘For you I would have borrowed a flute, my dear, or even a lyre if that would have pleased you.’

  She went into his open arms. ‘Oh, my darling. Whatever did I do to deserve you,’ she whispered.

  Later she read Holly’s letter again. For this boy Holly was prepared to stay in a boarding house in Edinburgh while all her other friends were at home enjoying the break. What did she plan to do on Christmas Day or the days before this wonderfully romantic Christmas concert on Christmas Eve? She was surely trusting that she would see the boy, that she would be part of his Christmas. It was not obvious to Holly’s grandmother, however, that this would be so. ‘Ruaridh has asked me to go to the Christmas carol concert at St Giles on Christmas Eve. Anne has gone to Switzerland with her mother who is in the process of getting another divorce and Gairn has gone to his sheep farm in the Highlands, so it will be just Ruaridh and me. I’ve bought a green Christmas coat and my very first hat – green too. I think I look a bit like Robin Hood but the girl in the shop said it was just the thing.’

  ‘And after Christmas, Ian, is she hoping that he’ll be so devastated by the hat that . . .? Oh, what, I don’t know what modern young girls think. While she’s staying alone in some awful boarding house this young man is having a lovely family holiday.’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t have a family?’

  ‘No, she mentioned him last year. He’s the rich one who lives in a great mansion of a place with his older brother and I’m sure there are servants. He’ll be waited on hand and foot while my little Holly is hanging around in a boarding house waiting for him to shout. What happens after the concert, Ian? He’ll take her to her digs, I suppose.’ A dreadful thought entered Kate’s remarkably naïve mind. ‘Oh, Ian, you don’t think . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t. What I do think is that he has made a fairly innocent suggestion, since Holly has so obviously fallen in love, not just with him but with music, that she come with him to this rather nice concert on Christmas Eve. It probably hasn’t occurred to him that her home isn’t in Edinburgh and when he realizes that she is staying in a boarding house, naturally his family will ask her to Christmas dinner and if there are parties and dances . . . as there will be for golden boys like our Ruaridh, then she’ll be asked along. She’ll probably phone you asking at long last for some extra money for party frocks. She’ll be the belle of the Edinburgh ball, our little Holly.’

  Kate relaxed. How sensible Ian was. ‘You’re right, of course, and perhaps I should just send a cheque for some pretty things as an extra Christmas present. Perhaps she’ll bring her friend here after Christmas. I could suggest that, and then she could have her gifts here. I was going to post everything but it will never get to Edinburgh on time with the Christmas rush. I’ll try to think of her having a lovely time with nice people, Ian dear, and we’ll have a lovely quiet Christmas on our own.’

  The bakery, which would not pass to its new owners until the spring, was especial
ly busy at Christmas time and Kate had little time to dwell on her grand-daughter’s affairs. For the first time she realized what an enormous burden the bakery and its employees had been all these years. What differences there would have been in her life if she had. She would have had time and money to invest in her relationships with her children. Would Liam have gone off to Glasgow to his death? Would Margaret have run off to marry George? The marriage had lasted. They seemed to be happy. They certainly appeared to have money. Even the little paper in Auchenbeath mentioned George and his entrepreneurial skills once in a while – local boy makes good. And Patrick? Kate thrust the thoughts away. I could do nothing else. If I made the wrong choices with my life God will punish me. I tried. God knows I tried.

  A beloved voice thrust the thoughts away. ‘Kate. Is there coffee?’

  Ian always entered the bakery the same way, as if he didn’t really belong. The local doctor on the way back from a patient. Kate lifted her face to her husband and smiled, her heartache eased. Oh, Margaret. I hope you have realized that your gold spickets don’t matter. It’s this that matters.

  ‘There’s always a cup of coffee for you, doctor,’ she teased in return, ‘and a bap if you have the time.’

  This time Ian had not been seeing a patient. True to his word he had retired and spent his days, while he waited for his wife to rid herself of her burdens, in scouring the locality for suitable land for their retirement home.

  ‘I’ve found it, Kate, three acres high on the side of a hill overlooking the Nith and about halfway between Auchenbeath and Dumfries. It’s about a half mile from the main road so we’ll never be isolated and Holly will be within shouting distance of her precious Grace. The farmer is willing to sell; he’s readjusting boundaries.’

  ‘It sounds wonderful.’

  ‘Water, plumbing, power, everything is handy. Won’t it be fun?’

  Kate looked at him. People their age were looking for a retirement home that would cosset their ageing bodies, not starting from the side of a hill to build one.

  ‘It will be wonderful fun,’ she said honestly, for with Ian everything was fun. With him she was twenty again, with all the energy she had had but none of the burdens. ‘Shall we put up a tent on the site while the builders are in?’

  ‘No doubt you are tough enough to stand it, Mrs Robertson, but my old bones require cosseting. I’ve enquired at the Fern Inn . . .’

  He stopped and she looked at him, joy written on her face. At the Fern Inn they had celebrated their engagement and had returned frequently since their marriage.

  ‘Oh, Ian.’

  ‘I didn’t deliberately set out to find a spot so close, or perhaps subconsciously I did but they’ll have us as soon as we like.’

  No time to think of Holly while her mind was full of the new challenge of building a house. No time to worry while she prepared for Christmas. Once and for all Kate had abandoned regrets. She had loved her children; she had grown to love her grand-daughter. She was here if anyone needed her; Holly, Margaret and her family, Bridie happily looking after Colm in Canada, Deirdre and her host of grandchildren.

  Ian brought a tree, the largest that had ever fitted into the bakery and they decorated it and piled their gifts under it. The bakery was open until late on Christmas Eve and Kate closed the door on the last baker to leave with almost unbearable happiness. It was over. That part of her life was over and her new life would really start when they moved at the beginning of the year.

  ‘Are you going to Midnight Mass, Kate?’ There was concern in Ian’s voice.

  ‘No. I’ll go to Mass tomorrow. Tonight I’m almost too tired even to eat. Let’s sit by the fire and watch the lights on the tree for a while.’

  Ian piled the fire with logs and they sat in the light cast from the fire and the twinkling fairy lights and listened to Christmas music.

  ‘I’m going to fall asleep right here, Ian,’ murmured Kate, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her – loving, protecting.

  ‘Me too, very romantic but we would wake up in the wee small hours stiff as boards with the fire out. You turn off the tree and I’ll attend to the fire.’

  ‘Oh, no, who can that be?’ asked Kate as there was the undoubted sound of a car in the yard. ‘Someone lost, I suppose, and using us as a turning point.’

  The door opened and Holly stood there. Kate could see the sturdy figure of the local taxi driver behind. No young man, no suitcase. They looked at one another.

  ‘I haven’t the fare,’ said Holly in a voice breaking from fatigue or unhappiness.

  Ian reached for his wallet. ‘I’ll handle it,’ he said. ‘Into the warm, Holly.’ They could hear his voice out in the large courtyard. ‘Awfully good of you to bring her.’

  ‘It’s Christmas,’ said the taxi driver. ‘And yer credit’s good, doctor.’

  Inside the warm house Holly still stood. ‘I changed my mind,’ she said in an attempt at normality and with the door still wide open.

  ‘Come in, dear,’ said Kate, ‘and close the door.’ Wisely she did not mention luggage.

  Holly turned and slowly and solemnly closed the door behind her. She turned back to her grandmother who still stood, exhaustion forgotten, as if rooted to the floor.

  The two women looked at one another, across the room, across the years.

  ‘Oh, Granny, he didn’t want me after all,’ said Holly and quite naturally threw herself into her grandmother’s open arms.

  Kate led her to the sofa and sat with her arms around her grand-daughter while the girl cried until she was exhausted. Ian came in and went off to the kitchen where Kate could hear him bustling about. She smiled; for a doctor he had amazing belief in the restorative power of a cup of tea.

  She soothed Holly as she had sometimes soothed the girl’s father, ‘There, there, lambie, it’s all right; everything is all right.’

  Ian’s records were still playing on the gramophone. ‘Hark, the Herald Angels Sing’.

  And then the story tumbled out. ‘I must have fallen in love with him the first time I saw him, Gran. He was so beautiful and his voice . . . I can’t describe his voice, like Brotheroam. I suppose I thought he was like Jerome in other ways too. He would never, ever, hurt . . .’ The tears came again and the paroxysms of painful grief.

  Wisely, Kate waited. The heavenly choir in the background was, at last, quiet.

  ‘We were at The Chocolate House, Granny Kate, having supper, Anne and Gairn and Ruaridh and me. We’d been to the concert . . . it was super . . . he conducted Finlandia, Gibson, that is. We hummed it all the way to Princes Street and then Anne mentioned the Christmas concert in the cathedral.’

  ‘We’re not going,’ she said. ‘My mama is following her money into exile in Switzerland.’

  ‘I’ve got a job on the post,’ said Gairn. He’s nice, Gran, Gairn. I thought he was a gypsy; his hair is so untidy all the time and he’s tweedy and . . . fun, I suppose.’

  She was quiet, the sobs subsiding, but she stayed within her grandmother’s arms and Kate held her there. Let him who dared try to remove her child from the safety of her arms.

  ‘Why don’t you come, Holly?’ Just as simple as that. And I thought, stupid, vain me . . . How could a boy like Ruaridh like me, Gran? I thought . . .’

  ‘It’s all right, my dear,’ soothed Kate, rocking them back and forth. ‘Everything is all right.’

  ‘I thought it was a date. How stupid of me. I can’t believe how stupid. What a fool I’ve made of myself.’

  Anger is better, thought Kate. Let it out, Holly.

  ‘He said nothing about the days between the end of term and Christmas. I got a job on the post like Gairn and I waited and waited for Christmas Eve. I bought a coat and a hat . . . and gloves, Gran . . .’ The words stabbed Kate’s heart. ‘Brotheroam said that ladies always wore gloves.’

  She was crying again. My God, where did a young girl’s tears come from?

  ‘Oh, it hurts, Granny.
I can’t bear the pain.’

  ‘I’ll get Ian . . .’ began Kate and was surprised to hear a strangled laugh and to feel her arms being gripped tightly.

  ‘It’s not that kind of pain, Gran.’

  Kate waited. With Holly in the circle of her aching arms she would wait for ever.

  ‘There was a Christmas card . . . today . . . Christmas Eve . . . God, how could he . . . Christmas Eve . . . and a silly little card . . . Dear Holly . . . my brother says I must be with my family. Enjoy the concert, Ruaridh. Just like that. No apology, no . . . I’ll see you next term . . . nothing except enjoy the concert. I couldn’t believe it. I waited; it had to be some mistake, I said. I dressed. I put on my new coat and that stupid little hat and I waited . . . He didn’t come.’ The voice was very low, the words so quiet Kate strained to hear them. ‘I wanted to die.’

  Kate held her even more tightly. I’ll take your pain, Holly, her heart was crying. God, let me share her pain.

  ‘I walked and walked and then I was at the bus station and I smelled bread. There was no one there but I smelled bread. Granny Kate. That was all I could think of, Granny Kate. I put the coat and the hat in the paper bin in the lavatory and I came . . . home.’

  Had Ian been waiting for the voices to quieten? He came in with a tray. ‘I’ll take myself off to bed and leave you ladies. Father Christmas won’t come while we’re up.’

  He bent to kiss Kate and laid his hand affectionately on Holly’s shoulder. ‘It’s great to have some real Holly for Christmas.’

  ‘He’s nice, Gran,’ said Holly.

  Ian had made tea and toast and, more aware than his wife of the amazing restorative power of a young healthy body, had reheated the stew Kate had been too tired to eat. Kate sat beside the girl and watched her eat and listened, listened, listened, as all the stories of all the years came out. Sometimes Holly laughed; more often, she cried. There must be a well, thought Kate. I don’t ever remember crying like that. Once, after Mam died. Mam, do you see us? My Holly has come to me to help her, to love her. I’ll never let her down.