by Fanny Blake
‘And postcards.’ Isla shuffled the little collection into a neat pile. ‘Let’s see. Some of them aren’t written on, like this one of the Eiffel Tower, but here… Madame has been very kind, and I’m getting on better with Emile now. We live opposite the Jardin du Luxembourg – look it up on a map. Paris is beautiful. Love, M.’ She held the card up to the light so that she could read the postmark. ‘Nineteen fifty something. So now we know she was definitely there.’
‘But why didn’t she talk about it? Why keep it secret?’
‘If it was only a short time, maybe she just forgot. How much can you remember about your misspent youth?’ Morag picked up another card. ‘Look. Sacré Coeur. Aggie! I wish you could meet Max. He’s a dreamboat. Don’t tell Mummy and Daddy.’
‘I’d remember something as special as being in Paris must have been in the nineteen fifties. The war hadn’t been over long, and she was a young woman. It must have been eye-opening. And who’s Max?’
‘You’ll have to ask Aunt Aggie. You’re bound to get something from her – if she’ll spill.’
‘She’s been so cagey when I’ve tried to ask her anything over the phone. She just plays deaf or makes an excuse. Maybe it’ll be different face to face.’
‘But before you get there, we need to talk about Braemore.’ Morag rolled the red ribbon round her fingers.
‘Oh, God. Is there anything left to say? I’m more interested in all this, and finding out more about Mum.’ Isla pointed at the hatbox. ‘And why the will.’
‘Where are you?’ Louise’s voice came from the kitchen, interrupting them.
‘In here,’ Morag yelled back.
Louise appeared, looking worn out, but still smiling and carrying a mug of tea. Her denim dungarees were dirty, there were smears of what might be blood on her arms, and her hair was escaping from a loose bun. ‘God! I need this! Long day, but the foal’s fine except she doesn’t have a name. You can come and see her, if you like.’ She looked at Charlie who was still poking about in the hatbox. She stopped with a photo in her hand, not realising she was being spoken to. ‘Is this her?’
‘Would you like to, Charlie?’ Isla prompted, impatient.
‘Oh, me? Yeah.’ For a moment, Charlie looked as if she was going say more but turned back to the photo. ‘Yeah, of course.’
‘We thought you might like to come to the practice or even come on my rounds.’ Lou sat down with a sigh of exhaustion.
‘Really?’ Charlie looked up as enthusiasm broke through her signature indifference.
‘Thank you,’ said Isla on her behalf, glaring at her as if that would instil some semblance of manners.
Charlie frowned back. ‘Yeah, thanks. I really would.’ She held the photo out to Morag, who took it.
‘That’s Mum all right. Look. Who’s she with? She looks like a young Marilyn Monroe.’
‘Don’t they look happy? Look at the way she’s gazing at the person behind the camera.’
‘Max? Another question for Aggie.’
‘Back in a minute.’ Charlie left the room, her phone in her hand.
‘What were you going to say about Braemore?’ Isla didn’t miss the glance exchanged between the other two women. ‘What?’
‘It’s Lorna. She’s been leaning on Aggie to sell the place.’ Morag punched a cushion and put it behind her. ‘It’s completely out of order.’
‘Even if that’s true, what can I do about it?’
‘Aggie told me. She was upset. Apparently there’s a developer who wants the paddocks. He’s made a substantial offer subject to probate. Lorna wants her to accept. She can go on living in Braemore.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with me now,’ said Isla firmly, despite feeling sadness their family home had become such a bone of contention. But May had made sure that was the case. Had she known a developer was sniffing around? ‘Why do you mind so much, anyway?’
‘Because it’s our home. I know it’s sentimental but I can’t bear to think of it ruined or sold off. And because we don’t know what Aggie will do in her will. You may inherit part of it then.’
Isla laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’ She remembered their mother sitting in a deckchair next to their father on the stone terrace at Braemore, slim in a striped dress, hair held back off her face with a scarf, head thrown back as she laughed. ‘Just think, David. One day we won’t be here and the girls will have all this. Imagine that.’ What had happened to change her mind?
‘Whatever Mum’s done, Braemore’s still part of you. You grew up there, for God’s sake. Our family home’s about to be parcelled off piecemeal if Lorna has her way. Imagine it with two or three des res right beside it. She must have notified the developer herself.’
‘But you don’t have any proof,’ Louise reminded her.
‘I don’t need proof. I know her. What’s she up to? Isla, you’re the only one who can stop her.’
‘Me?’ Isla put the photo of May and her friend back into the box.
‘Who else?’
‘She must need the money. But what for? Andrew’s loaded.’ Apart from his lucrative position in one of the top Edinburgh law firms, as an only child he had inherited plenty when his parents died. Lorna had never lacked in that department.
‘But you must care about Aggie. You’re the one she’s closest to and she’s being bullied into something she doesn’t want and that’s not right. You can help her stand up to Lorna.’
‘She’s on my conscience but when I’ve called her she never wants to talk.’ Since May’s will it was as if Aggie had distanced herself from her. Isla had read that as her being uncomfortable about being left Isla’s share of the estate. Yet she never said so. This wasn’t like her at all. Isla knew and loved Aggie like a second mother so she was baffled and hurt.
Before she had moved in with May, Aggie had lived in a large Edinburgh flat overlooking the Meadows, gloriously independent, and impossibly glamorous, working at the Lyric Theatre. For Isla, the flat had been the most wonderful retreat from family disagreements, and Aggie always gave her the warmest welcome. The flat was stuffed with things she had accumulated from her time working in the theatre: theatrical posters adorned the walls, programmes of the many shows she had seen or been involved with were piled up on the bookshelves. They would sit in front of the fire and toast marshmallows, or eat drop scones dripping with butter, while Aggie regaled her with stories from the days when, as a young woman, she had run away to London where her Aunt Jess had introduced her to a stage manager who had given Aggie her first job.
‘Those were the happiest days of my life,’ she’d say, looking dreamy. ‘Far from home, in a job that I loved. We did everything then, finding the props, painting the set, prompting the actors – whatever was needed. Once, when I…’ And off she’d go into one of her rambling reminiscences about one actor or another whom she’d worked with. So very different from her sister, May, who, as far as Isla knew, had a much more staid youth that she seemed to prefer to forget about.
‘Actually I asked Aggie about Mum, too.’ Morag interrupted her thoughts. ‘You’re not the only one who wants an explanation.’
Isla was immediately alert. ‘And?’
‘And nothing.’ Morag shrugged as in apology. ‘She dived off down a tangent about not giving the right prompt to Alec Guinness.’
‘Oh, that old one.’ They shared a complicit grin – Aggie’s theatrical anecdotes had all been heard many times over. ‘But she must know something about the Paris connection. We now know Mum was there. And there’s the picture and its note. There must be a connection.’ That felt to Isla like a valuable nugget of information, although she had no idea why.
‘Not necessarily.’
‘But it seems likely.’ Isla’s head was befuddled with the few facts she knew about her mother’s early life. And now Paris. The answer she was looking for must lie in there somewhere. ‘So that was before she met Dad?’
‘Didn’t they meet at a party in Edinburgh? But you’ll have to catch Agg
ie after a couple of gins and quiz her when her guard’s down.’
‘Have you ever seen a picture of their wedding?’ Where other friends’ parents paraded the happiest day of their lives in their living rooms, Isla couldn’t remember ever seeing one of her parents’.
‘She had a tiny black and white one of them at Gretna.’
‘They went there? Why? I’d have thought they’d have had a really fancy affair, given he was an Adair.’
‘Dad was a dark horse, more romantic that we gave him credit for, maybe?’ But it was obvious Morag didn’t believe that any more than Isla did.
‘But none of this explains why Mum left me out.’ She disliked this feeling of resentment.
‘I did ask Donaldson about that.’
‘You spoke to the lawyer too? Why didn’t I think of that?’ When initially trying so hard to push her mother from her mind, she had failed to cover all the bases. And May had refused to let her go.
‘I thought Mum might have said something to him.’
‘And?’ Isla leaned forward. Had Morag been holding back the answer all along?
‘Client confidentiality blah blah, but he did say that he’d pointed out to her that she had missed you out, asking her if it was deliberate. Apparently she simply said, yes it was and it was too late to explain.’
‘What the hell does that mean? Why too late? To explain what?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s just like the note you found in her bedroom.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
Morag shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. After that it was just a brick wall.’
‘I will find out why.’ Isla clasped her hands together. ‘I will.’
‘I know. And I’ll do whatever you ask to help.’
14
That night Morag and Isla didn’t have much chance to talk again about May or Braemore. They all ate in the kitchen, which was large and lived in, the hub of the house, complete with cream Aga and a Welsh dresser full of china and bits of post and fliers for local events. In the centre was a big oak table. Before the meal, Isla had helped clear the remains of the last meal, and shopping that hadn’t been put away. At one end there was a fireplace flanked by two tatty armchairs, one of them occupied by one of the stable cats.
Their conversation almost exclusively revolved around the animals, largely for Charlie’s benefit. The ploy had worked. There was a new light in the girl’s eyes. She had taken photos of everything she’d seen on the farm but most of the new leggy brown foal with knee-length white socks and a white blaze. She had watched, enraptured as it balanced on its spindly legs and fed greedily. When she suggested the name Echo, Louise had leaped on it. ‘That’s perfect. That’s it.’ Charlie was over the moon the name had stuck. In the barn they found a litter of kittens born a couple of months earlier: adorable black-and-white bundles of fluff that skittered about, avoiding human contact. Eventually Louise caught one on top of a hay bale and gave it to Charlie who cradled it as if she’d never let it go.
‘Can you take a picture of us,’ she said, holding out her phone. ‘Her heart’s beating a million miles a minute.’ She stroked the little head with a finger while Isla clicked away for her.
By the time supper was over, Isla was exhausted and happy to leave the heavy conversation till the following day.
Alone at last, she decided to call Aggie again. It was late enough for her aunt to think it might be an emergency, so she might answer. And sure enough…
‘Aunt Aggie!’
‘My God, hen. What’s happened? It’s ten thirty.’
‘Nothing at all. Don’t worry. I just want to ask you about Mum.’
There was a hush from the other end of the line, so she ploughed on.
‘I’m at Morag’s. That hatbox she took was full of stuff from a trip Mum must have made to Paris years ago. Was she sent there to be finished? There must be a connection with the picture she left me? Because I found a note in the back of it, written in French. What do you know?’
‘Och, it’s so long ago, dear.’
This was typical prevarication.
‘Can you remember where she and Dad met?’
‘It’s so long ago. But yes, she went to Paris when she was about twenty I think. I’ve got a few of her postcards somewhere.’
‘There are some in the box.’
‘Are there?’ She sounded flustered. ‘I must have given them back to her then. Did I tell you that I found the letters Michael Caine wrote to me? He was such a dear. He…’
‘Show me when I see you next week.’ If she didn’t cut the story off now, they’d be on the phone for hours. ‘What was Mum doing in Paris?’
‘She looked after a little boy. I don’t remember his name.’
Isla could almost hear the cogs whirring in her brain.
‘Who was Max?’
‘Yes, there was an American boy. Was that his name?’
‘Did he and Mum have an affair?’
Isla sensed Aggie had started to play for time so repeated the question.
‘Och, heaven knows, dear. It’s too long ago, and it’s very late.’
‘I’m sorry. I should have waited.’ Isla brought the conversation to a close, feeling that she had taken a step forward. An American boy. Why would Aggie remember him if he weren’t significant? But significant how exactly? The layers were being peeled away from her mother’s life but she still had no inkling of what she would find at its heart.
The one other person she was dying to talk to was Tony. He might be interested in the little she’d found out about May. However, she must remember she hadn’t told him about being left out of the will, just about the argument and her longing to know her mother better.
‘I was just going to bed,’ he said. ‘But all’s well here. You mustn’t worry.’
‘I’m not.’ Not quite true. She missed her home. ‘I just wanted to hear your voice.’
‘And now you have, what are you going to do?’ He laughed softly.
‘Sleep better.’
‘Then I’m glad you called, because now I will too. Is everything all right?’
‘I’m unpicking stuff, bit by bit. We’ve found a hatbox full of mementoes from a trip she made to Paris in the Fifties. I’ll tell you more when I see you. What have you been doing?’
‘Trying to progress some of the irons I have in the fire, and it looks as if one of them just might be about to come off.’
‘That’s great.’ She was pleased for him. Having a job would give him a security she knew he hadn’t felt since his return to the UK. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m not telling you yet because I don’t want to jinx it. But I think you’ll be excited. I am. And then I’ll be able to pay you back what I owe.’
‘I don’t want you to worry about that.’
‘But I do. I’ve kept an exact tally.’
Which was more than Isla had done. But she trusted him.
They talked for a little while, but when she finally turned out her light, she didn’t sleep better at all. She couldn’t help thinking about Braemore. Why had May divided it the way she had, and why was Lorna so desperate to persuade them to sell? Morag was right. Even though she wasn’t part of the decision, Isla hated the idea of her family home being sold off in lots until all the family history that gave it its character had gone.
She thought of her sisters. As they grew up, their differences had of course become more pronounced. Morag’s devotion to animals had never wavered in all that time. When she was about seven, she set up her own vet’s practice in the old potting shed where she held all sorts of injured birds and animals that she found in the fields until they were better. The death count had been high. There was a small pet cemetery at the end of the garden where there were frequent funerals with Morag as the chief mourner.
As the youngest, Lorna had always wanted to be the boss. Things weren’t right unless they were done her way. To begin with, Isla and Morag had fallen in with her because she was the youngest
and it was easier to take the least line of resistance. Until the day Pluto, a pigeon with an injured wing escaped Morag’s surgery to be caught and killed by the cat.
‘You let him out on purpose!’ Morag was screaming, tears pouring down her face.
‘I didn’t.’ Lorna was dismissive.
But Isla had seen her lift the catch to the cage and walk away, leaving it open, not five minutes after Morag had drunk the last of the homemade lemonade so there was none for her sisters. Lorna’s revenge could be swift and cruel.
They stopped being such pushovers after that but often when they stood their ground, May would step in and protect her youngest daughter. Lorna had grown up used to getting what she wanted so Isla knew she wouldn’t give up easily when there was something in her way.
As for Isla… the geeky one, obsessed with her collections – birds’ eggs, pressed flowers, sea shells – happy to be alone sorting them out, labelling them, organising them in the architect’s plan chest her father had found for her, keeping out of arguments when they flared up between the other two.
‘Goody goody,’ her younger sisters would taunt as they ganged up against her when she preferred to go off on her own rather than join in some prank they had dreamed up. The dynamics between the three of them became increasingly complex and changeable as allegiances shifted. And she had been the ugly duckling – ginger hair, freckles and big teeth – who transformed into a model (short-lived as it was) and actress (ditto).
Isla’s concentration on her return to Braemore was prompting so much: had their childhood really been as idyllic as she had told Mary? Or was she giving it a more positive spin than it deserved? Now she remembered May’s inexplicable mood swings, even when they were little, which led to her father’s long-suffering silences and retreats to his study. He was the one who had always been even-handed in his kindness to his children: the way he’d slip them a forbidden sweet, bring them treats back from his occasional business trips away, always ready with a kind word when he was at home.
When she was eight, he taught Isla to tell the time, then gave her a watch for Christmas.