by Leah Fleming
This car had been in an accident recently and it must have been Harry who had left the injured lad on the roadside to take his chance. He had just carried on regardless because he was drunk, but he had been mindful enough to hide the evidence from view.
How many times recently had Harry returned the worse for wear? How many times had she warned him about his responsibility to set an example? How many times had her husband argued that he could hold his liquor, that he was a careful driver when he knew he’d been drinking? He knew when he had had enough, was his boast.
What if Maggie Prentiss’s laddie died? What if his car was identified and Harry was sent to prison for manslaughter? What would happen to the business, the house, their children? Myriad questions spun around her head and she felt that old sickening fear returning.
What should she do? Ring the police with her suspicions? Testify against her husband? The evidence was there for all to see. Minn closed the door trembling, feeling sick and ashamed. Harry had done many things, but to let a boy die?
By the time he came home that evening she was shaking with fury, waiting for his explanation. ‘Why did you take my car this morning?’
‘The Jag’s playing up,’ Harry lied, confirming her worst fears.
‘Where is it then?’ She was not be fobbed off.
‘In the garage for repairs,’ he snapped, his hand already stretching out for the whisky decanter.
‘No! It’s not, you liar! How come it’s hidden in the far byre with a broken light and dents? Did YOU knock Maggie Prentiss’s boy down this morning?’ she screamed, pulling the glass out of his hand and smashing it on the floor.
‘What on earth are you talking about? Look at the mess you’ve made,’ Harry bluffed.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. Did you knock a man off his bike in the small hours and leave him for dead?’ she said with ice in her voice.
‘Keep your voice down, the children will hear. There was a bump. I hit a rabbit, that’s all,’ Harry whispered.
‘Did you stop to find out? No… you were too drunk and you swerved and sped on your merry way. It was Maggie Prentiss’s boy and he’s in hospital. For all I know he may be dead. Everyone knows how fast you drive, as if you own the road. You were drunk. You’re always drunk these days!’ Minn spat out her words.
‘And whose fault’s that? There’s precious little to come home for these days… not since Hew was born,’ Harry snapped back. ‘You turn your back on me every night.’
‘Go on, blame me, change the subject. Did you hit the cyclist?’ Minn persisted.
‘I don’t know. I saw the damage when I got back. I didn’t stop. I was afraid. If I lose my licence how can I do business?’ he whined, and she could see for the first time he was owning his crime.
‘Ach away with you, you can afford to hire ten chauffeurs if you need to. You have to report the accident to the police and cut down your drinking sprees. You have to stay home and be a responsible citizen. Take responsibility for your actions, and don’t you dare blame me.’ Minn was furious, her eyes flashed icily at her husband. ‘You disgust me… leaving a young man to die on the road.’
‘He’s not dead,’ Harry croaked. ‘I rang the ambulance from a call box as soon as I realized what had happened, if you must know. He’s got a broken leg and concussion. He landed in the ditch and it broke his fall, thank God!’
Minn paced the floor, speechless at his confession. She could see the shame and agitation on his red face; the veins on his nose were standing out. This was her husband; a liar, a cheat, a coward, a weak man who drank too much, and she hated him. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must own up to it at once. Claim you think you hit something last night. The longer you leave it the worse it looks, she pleaded.
‘What if I’ve to go to court?’ he argued.
‘That’s the least of your worries. You must apologize to the Prentiss family, make it up to the couple. Say you were tired and half asleep after a long drive and you didn’t realize. Please, Harry, it’s the only way to square it with honour.’
‘Do you really think so? Don’t be naive! It’s already far too late to report the accident. It looks bad. Better to say nothing. I can make it up to Donnie Prentiss in my own way. Just leave it at that. I’ve learnt my lesson.’
‘Well if you won’t I will,’ Minn replied, her voice trembling as she made for the telephone. Harry grabbed her arm roughly.
‘Let it be. You can’t testify against me. Just hold on and think it all through. It has implications for you and the kids if I’m sent down. I promise that I’ll never drink and drive again.’ Minn turned and glared at him. ‘Look, you’ve got to trust me. I know what’s best for this family. I’ve learnt my lesson. Let me make it up to the Prentiss family in my own way. There’s no permanent harm done. It was just a little fall from a bike. His lights were faulty. I’m sure,’ Harry argued.
‘How can I trust you, Harry Lennox? Everything you’ve ever done has been a lie, and worst of all I’m stuck here because of your lies,’ she answered, suddenly feeling strong.
‘What on earth do you mean by that?’ He looked like a little boy trying to fake his lying.
‘Who was it who told Ewan Mackinnon that I was about to marry Roddy Lennox and that my love child was his? Who was it who let him think he was talking to the chauffeur and who made damn sure he was driven at top speed back from whence he came? Who made sure I never saw the telegram he sent? You sent him away and let me think he didn’t care. How can I ever trust you after that?’ she said turning away to stoke the fire.
‘That was a long time ago. You were unhappy. He had hurt you and I wanted you. All’s fair in love and war, darling, and I loved you the first time I set eyes on you. Don’t blame a man for loving you,’ he said trying to sit close to her, but she edged away.
‘It’s not love to deny someone their true happiness or to deny them the chance to choose. You cheated me as you cheated the government with your black market racketeering. Don’t think I don’t know how you kept this show on the road. I don’t trust you and I never will until you own up to what you’ve done. For once in your life be a man and do something the honourable way and stop drinking so much.’
‘My cars and my wines are all the comfort I get in this cold house,’ he said. ‘Show me some affection.’ He grasped her but she struggled.
‘Not now, not until I’m sure you mean what you say,’ she said, standing up. ‘I’m tired and I want to sleep alone. The rest is up to you.’
In the days that followed the accident Minn picked up the phone and dropped it many times. She watched for a blue police car coming up the drive bringing a summons to their door but as the days turned into weeks nothing happened. Donnie Prentiss came home on crutches to the arrival of a brand new bicycle presented by Pitlandry Men’s Forum, whose president just happened to be Harry Lennox. Minn recognized her husband’s handiwork in the gesture.
They maintained the usual outward appearances of unity for the children’s sake but Minn had never felt so utterly alone or ashamed of her own cowardice. She could no longer live this lie, cushioning her misery with fine clothes, furniture and collectibles. This marriage was a sham. Even their wedding certificate was not worth the paper it was written on, since Ken Broddick was still officially declared missing.
Did that make Hew a bastard like herself? She couldn’t stand for him to bear that stigma. How would she ever learn to lead a single life or trust in her own decisions? Would Harry go on supporting them? How would she survive all the lonely weekends when there were no footsteps in the hall bringing flowers and wine and gossip on a dark night? How would she fill the gap with only the children for company?
A mother divorced, alone with children, was a social outcast. Her own mother had taught her that. Was she still a timid Highlander at heart?
As the week went on and neither of them picked up the phone Minn could not sleep or eat
or be civil to Harry. If the boy had been killed, what then? Would she have had the courage of conscience to have done something? She couldn’t be sure. It was like leaving Ken Broddick all over again and the fear of poverty was lurking at the back of her anxious mind. How could she live with herself? What example was it to their children?
The more she rejected Harry’s advances, the more she drove him from her bed, the worse it would get. He was right in that one thing. She was unfaithful, for she was still in love with Ewan.
This strange affair was haunting her mind. It was the worst betrayal of all, which would wound Harry all his life: an affair of the mind that never ended because it was never properly fulfilled, she mused.
She had tried to put Ewan out of her mind, living this insular life, distracted by theatre, music, fine art and family. There was no time to think about lost love if she was busy with the children or being entertained
Yet in the early hours, in the twilight between waking and sleep, night and morning, when she was so vulnerable he came to her, the dark man of her dreams. In the dream she ran towards him with longing, calling his name into the wind. ‘Cait’a bheil thu a dol? Where are you going? but the grey haar thickened, screening his face from sight. Then she woke with tears streaming down her face, a stab of pain in her gut and the realization that her marriage was a bed of sorrows, a bed of thorns, and it couldn’t go on.
Minn rose early and began to pack. They would need warm clothes.
PART THREE
Is it not sweet to hear the breeze singing?
As lively it comes o’er the deep rolling sea;
But sweeter and dearer by far ’tis when bringing
The barque of my true love in safety to me.
One
Phetray
They bent westward into the wind round the edge of Kilphetrish Bay with its curved expanse of white sand. There was a thin line of blue on the horizon and Minn hoped that the worst of the storm that had trapped them indoors all day in the empty harbour hotel was over now.
She held on tight to Hew’s hand as he waddled in his siren suit and new shoes while Anna sped out of the doors like a young calf let out in the spring fields for the first time. It was a world of wonder for a child to run free on an empty beach staring up at the neat thatched cottages and pointing to the roofs netted and roped with stone weights against the gales that had lashed the coast since their sudden arrival two days ago.
The stone manse stood firm close to the village school, silent because it was mid-term and the children were helping with the potato harvest. Older familiar faces passed them by, glancing in their direction, curious but polite. Their names tumbled out of her memory and she nodded back. Soon it would be round the island that Minnie Macfee was back for a visit with her children; a gey strange time to take a holiday, tongues would wag.
Was it a holiday, an impulse break away from the strain of the past weeks, or was she fleeing from a stale marriage and Harry’s weakness? She didn’t know and didn’t care. It was enough just to sniff the wind and such familiar scents: a tangle of clover and thyme, salt and seaweed. There were terns diving overhead, lapwings chewitting in protest, and the kittiwakes soared as she carried Hew down from the coastal path across the wet machair towards the rocky outcrop close to a ruined harbour.
From the pasture and track they were turning from modern times to more ancient territory where the past was harder to ignore. Here tramped the Duke’s men to clear the land for sheep and pushed her poor forebears to subsist on the shoreline. Here the sons of Phetray boarded men-o’-war, pressed into service never to return. Here the bodies of luckless mariners were carried shoulder high for burial, up the old gangway encrusted now with barnacles. It was as if her sturdy brogues footed themselves to this shore.
‘Come away from the water,’ she cried out as Anna raced ahead. The girl turned and gave her such a look of defiance it shocked her. She darted across the rocks, muffled in her thick coat and woolly hat like a rubber ball. Hew strained at the leash to follow her, struggling out of Minn’s grip, wriggling.
‘It’s time to find Granny’s house,’ Minn shouted. ‘First to see it is king of the castle!’
Anna turned, curious, making her way back as they trod gingerly across damp boggy grass, avoiding the steaming cowpats and cattle and the dips where in summer the yellow flag iris bent to the force of Kilphetrish Bay.
Why had she never brought Anna when her mother was alive? Why did she wait until there was no one here to greet them to ask Uncle Niall for the loan of the cottage for a week or two?
She had written to him asking if they could stay on Phetray, not waiting for his reply. The key would be where it always was, hung on a hook in the old byre. Here no one had need to lock their door. There were no public crimes, just the odd misdemeanour, a bit of drunkenness and a few secret lusts that were held in check by the kirk elders.
As they came ever closer past the little clachan of cottages she could hardly breathe for emotions flooding like the racing tide as the house of her childhood came in view, standing alone from the others; the vegetable patch overgrown, the thatch in need of repair, the thick walls standing sentinel.
‘This is Granny Eilidh’s house. This is where your mummy lived when she was a little girl,’ she whispered to Anna. ‘We’re going to stay here for a little while,’ she added.
Anna looked at it puzzled. ‘For a holiday?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps,’ Minn replied, pushing the creaking door into the byre where once the cow snuffled in a warm mixture of dung and straw to find the dusty key for the lock. It was rusty and wouldn’t turn. In frustration she turned the knob and the door just opened.
She stared into the little living room. There was still a scent of peat and smoke, like the scent of a rich malt whisky. She fingered the kist that kept the oats and flour dry and the shelf above the fire where the wooden framed photograph of Uncle Niall in his uniform stood stern over their daily living like the eye of the Lord.
Minn was lost for a second reliving that last visit, the stink of a leaking paraffin lamp, the big black Bible in the corner open for evening prayers and her mother’s last confession. She saw the razor strap hanging on the hook behind the door and remembered the skelpings. Her eyes filled up with tears.
‘It smells in here and it’s dark. Where’s the light switch?’ Anna sniffed, turning her nose up. ‘It’s like a doll’s house. I don’t want to stay in here.’
‘Come and see the little bedrooms,’ Minn replied pointing to the door that opened into the bedroom with its brass bed and chest and the other little box room that had been her own den when Uncle Niall was away at sea.
‘Look, here’s the spinning wheel. Do you know, when I was small we gathered all the fallen fluff off the sheep and spun it into wool to knit our clothes. Wasn’t that clever? And we even collected up the cowpats and dried them to put on the fire,’ she said.
‘Yuk! Cow poo! Mummy, that’s horrible,’ Anna said.
‘I see I’ve grown a little snob, young lady,’ Minn snapped. And who’s to blame for that? she thought.
Even she could see it was all too damp and fusty to live in straight away. It would need a good spring clean. The fire would need building up to heat the iron range for hot water.
‘Do we have to stay here?’ said Anna, unimpressed.
‘It’ll be like Little House on the Prairie. We’ll light a fire and air the house and find the hot water bottles and buy some groceries from the store and have lots of fun,’ she said briskly.
‘When’s Daddy coming? Why can’t we stay at the hotel?’ Anna was not for bribing.
‘He’s busy at work. I told you before. This is our special adventure, just the three of us to see if we like it. Don’t you want to play on the sands and see where Mummy was a little girl?’
It was going to be hard work coaxing the reluctant child who always took her daddy’s side of the argument. Anna was spoilt and used to the easy ways of Pitlandry. It would do them all
good to do without comforts for a while, to be alone together and explore the island. Surely there would be a car to hire or a pony and trap. That would be an adventure.
‘I want to go outside,’ yelled Anna, dashing through the door again, her dark pigtails down her back, into the sunlight.
Standing in this ghostly half-light, Minn saw herself as a child, impatient, darting like a stoat out of a dyke, and Mother’s voice calling her back, ‘Cait’a bheil thu a dol? Where are you off to now? Anna was no different and she smiled.
‘Don’t go far,’ she yelled. ‘You can play on the grass but not by the rocks. It’s dangerous and slippery! Come and help me make a fire.’ There was no reply, as she watched Hew sitting on the wooden floor contentedly pulling at the old rug.
She was going to need some help to make the cottage fit for them all to live in. As if in answer to prayer an anxious voice shouted at the doorway in Gaelic.
‘Is that you, Mistress Lennox?’ Outside was a familiar face from her past; a face older, leathery and wind etched: their neighbour, Peggy Sinclair.
‘If I’d known you were about the place I’d have opened it up for you. The house’s lain empty since your poor mother passed away. I’ve not see Niall this past year. We heard you were back on the island with yer bairns. Come a way in with the wee boy for a warm up and a blether. You’re brave to weather the crossing at this time of year,’ said Peggy ushering them to her own warm cottage.
So her arrival was news already, and they were itching with curiosity. Peggy would ask gentle questions and form her own opinion as to why the wealthy Mistress Lennox should come back to Phetray at the time of the storms. It would be passed from the store to the Tulloch and the outlying farms that the Macfee girl was back to claim the cottage.