O Caledonia (16 page)

So it was that Lila returned to Auchnasaugh, silent and sedated, in the policeman
'
s Black Maria. Grimly the kitchen staff brought in her possessions; they were relieved to find that the old fur coats had been left in Edinburgh. Dora, valiant and fortified by her unaccustomed morning whisky, had said that she would burn them. Later she regretted this and was obliged to take another wee dram before dragging them out to the patch of frozen garden. She soaked them in paraffin, stood back and tossed a lighted rag into the midst. A fireball shot towards the heavens, there was a mighty blaze and a dense pall of stinking smoke.
‘
It
'
s a braw send off for the old cat,
'
she heard herself remark. This wouldn
'
t do. No more whisky. She hurled the bottle on to the fire and went in for a good strong cup of tea with Maisie.

Meanwhile at Auchnasaugh Lila
'
s rooms were being reassembled. Vera found some suitably moth-eaten and dingy curtains and a dank old roll of doggy carpet; thank goodness she hadn
'
t yet painted the walls. What a waste of their time all that cleaning and fumigation had been. She was tense with fury.
‘
I don
'
t believe she ever intended to make the slightest effort to build a life for herself,
'
she said to Hector.
‘
After all I
'
ve done for her. It is absolutely too bad.
'
Hector took a more philosophical view.
‘
It doesn
'
t really matter. Truth to tell, I didn
'
t feel too happy about her going to Edinburgh; she
'
s never lived anywhere like that and she
'
s too old to change her ways. Just let
'
s leave her in peace. I
'
ll sort something out for her.
'
By this Vera knew he meant that he would give Lila an allowance, to be squandered on whisky and cigarettes and tomatoes. She was too angry to argue, and at times she recognised in Hector a stubbornness greater than her own. This was such a time.

Lila had ignored everyone when she arrived. Her cat now rested in a deep drawer lined with blue velvet which she had removed from the Sheraton sideboard in Maisie
'
s dining room, fancying that an indigo background would show Mouflon to advantage. No one had noticed when she carried it out, draped in black lace, to the policeman
'
s car. No one noticed at all until it was too late. At Auchnasaugh Lila went straight down to the terrace garden, where animals were buried; erect and queenly, she glided over the hard-packed snow; she scarcely left a footprint. The policeman followed her, bearing the shrouded coffin. He laid it carefully on the frozen ground. Vera sent Francis down to help.
‘
Be quick. Otherwise goodness knows what she
'
ll make that policeman do next. And if she makes the grave herself she
'
s certain to dig up one of the dogs.
'
Francis appeared reluctantly, with a spade. The policeman departed. Lila and Francis chipped hopelessly at the unyielding snow. It was almost dusk and the crows and rooks were calling harshly as they drifted over a leaden sky, towards the woods. A cold wind stirred the ivy on the terrace wall.
‘
Maybe we could leave him until tomorrow?
'
suggested Francis.
‘
You can do what you please,
'
said Lila, giving him a long look of fathomless scorn.
‘
I know, I
'
ll fetch Jim.
'
Francis and Jim brought the huge Aga kettles, full of boiling water. For an hour they clambered and slithered up and down the frozen path, filling and re-filling. Darkness fell. The snow melted away, hissing and steaming; at last the ground softened; they could begin to dig. Layer upon layer, the earth yielded to them. Now under the wavering beam of the torch, incompetently held by Lila, a capacious burial chamber lay ready. They had not disturbed the dogs
'
eternal sleep, but they had brought to the surface the skeleton of a goldfish; within its delicate structure lay the unmistakable spine of a smaller fish.
‘
Aha!
'
said Francis.
‘
One of life
'
s mysteries is solved.
'
He turned chattily to his companions,
‘
I always thought there was something odd, fishy even, if I may so put it, in Hannibal dying on the day that Marius disappeared.
'
He laughed as a new thought came to him.
‘
Hannibal, posthumously known as Cannibal!
'
There was stony silence from Jim and Lila. Then,
‘
You can both go now,
'
said Lila.
‘
Not a word of thanks, of course,
'
Francis told Janet later.
‘
And we missed the only good bit. I was hoping for some serious liturgy. Or at least some keening and wailing.
' ‘
You have no heart, Francis,
'
said Janet.
‘
That
'
s as may be. Have you?
'

 

*

 

April was a winter month at Auchnasaugh. The snow on the ground was dispersing, but all along the sides of the roads great frozen ramparts of it jutted out, discoloured and splattered with mud. It was an ugly, bitter time of year. Some days the windows were still blotted by whirling snowflakes, the glen muted.
‘
The last throes of winter,
'
they said, each time this happened. It was harder than usual to keep warm. The damp of the thaw crept through the stone floors, up the stone walls. They shivered by the fire, made endless cups of tea to warm their hands. The Aga sulked and fumed: Miss Wales emerged choking and spluttering from the kitchen and handed in her notice. No longer could she cope; her chest couldn
'
t take it. Hector consoled Vera by reminding her that Miss Wales did this every year:
‘
As soon as she sees some blue sky, she
'
ll be all right.
'
The bath water, never more than tepid, was now constantly cold, and flooding burns and reservoirs seeped rich red mud into the pipes so that the taps seemed to pour forth blood. A mean whipping wind whined and skirmished about the castle, now this way, now that, slamming doors, tearing at hats and scarves, whisking the dogs
'
ears inside out. The cats refused to go outside at all. It was a prime time for Jeyes fluid. Only the wild duck enjoyed themselves, swimming ostentatiously across the lawn or sporting upside down in the lagoons of the drive. Jim was deprived of his usual pursuits, both murderous and horticultural, for the tractor foundered in the deep mud and the earth lay waterlogged or snowbound; he gratified himself by laying poison for the rats. Their distended, bloated corpses began to appear in the puddles. You had to watch where you stepped in your wellingtons. One day a battlement, freighted with melting snow, fell off and nearly hit him as he spread dried blood on the grass.

Janet considered the matter of spring with a pang of longing. She remembered the vivid crocuses, purple, yellow and white, of her early childhood. Oh, for some colour in the landscape. Then she felt guilty; she could scarcely believe that she had made a criticism of Auchnasaugh. She squashed the memory. Soon, in May, there would be the daffodils, thousands of them. People in these parts did not use the word
‘
spring
'
. They said
‘
the end of winter
'
or
‘
the beginning of summer
'
or they used the month
'
s name; winter ebbed into summer, there seemed no transitional period, none of the joyous awakening so favoured by verse and song. Janet felt that this season, as described by the English, brought out the worst in them.

 

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring.

 

Not here, they don
'
t, not likely, she thought with grim satisfaction. Even Shakespeare was afflicted:

 

It was a lover and his lass

With a hey and a ho and hey nonny no...

 

and worse still,

 

When birds do sing hey ding a dong ding...

 

She imagined herself coolly addressing the bard,
‘
And tell me, pray, just what birds do you have in mind?
'
Even Polly could sing better than that. In fact, Polly could sometimes sing
‘
Allons, enfants de la patrie
'.
That was the kind of stuff you expected from people like the Dibdins, not from the author of
Macbeth.

Lulu
'
s birthday fell at the end of April, just before term time. Vera took them all to the zoo in her new car, a Triumph convertible. Janet didn
'
t want to go. She dreaded the journey and she did not care to leave Auchnasaugh at any time. Nor did she take pleasure in other people
'
s birthdays. This one had been more than usually provoking because Hector and Vera had given Lulu her very own shaggy black Shetland pony. Janet felt that ponies belonged to her personal area of expertise which she did not want to share with anyone. They were invading her territory. She also feared that Rosie might lose status to this upstart. So when Vera asked her to help prepare the pony for the great moment when Lulu would first see him, she refused. Vera was painting his hooves gold in the dining room; Janet said this was bad for him; poison would seep into his bloodstream. Vera hung red baubles and twined green ribbons in his mane and tail. Janet said the baubles would break and he would get glass in his feet. Janet also said that everyone knew Shetland ponies were totally untrustworthy; no one in their senses bought them for little children. Vera flung the dandy brush at her.
‘
Out!
'
she screeched,
‘
Just get out!
'

Janet wandered off humming an insouciant hymn tune. Once she was out of earshot she sulked and brooded. She knew she was behaving horribly, she knew that she was indeed horrible, a despicable compound of arrogance, covetousness and self-centred rage. She was like one of those seething, stinking mud spouts which boil up in Iceland and lob burning rocks at passers-by. She felt guilt for blighting Vera
'
s pleasure and excitement; she felt shame. Her shame and guilt only made her angrier. Where would it end? Her heart was pounding; any moment she might burst. And after everything, Lulu, in her ecstatic joy, pronounced that the pony
'
s name was to be Blackie. Blackie! Not Satan, not Lucifer, not Pluto, not even Midnight, but Blackie! It was as well for her that Janet was speechless. Anyhow the morning
'
s events should put paid to her presence on the zoo trip. But after lunch Hector drew her aside:
‘
I
'
m not going to discuss your behaviour. It is beneath contempt, as you well know. This is Lulu
'
s day and you will go to the zoo with the others and put a good face on it. That is final.
'

The zoo was in a fold of the hills about twelve miles away. It was privately owned and it was reputed to be run on the lines of Whipsnade. This meant, Vera explained, that the animals ranged with some freedom over woodland, grassy slopes or boulder-strewn scree, according to preference. They had enclosures of course, but these were for their own protection. Wolves, after all, must be kept apart from deer.
‘
What, do you mean they don
'
t have lions or elephants?
'
asked Rhona in disappointment.
‘
Oh yes, I think they do; I
'
m sure they do.
'
‘
Well, how can animals from hot countries...,
'
began Janet. Then she remembered her outcast status and was silent. She was feeling a little more benevolent. She watched the clouds shift and the sun appear. A group of Highland cows were standing, sturdy and placid in the rough wet heather, by the roadside; beyond them the sky was palest blue and the watery sunbeams limned them in burnished light. They look holy, she thought, visionary. A vision of gentle beasts; she loved this idea.

Rhona had Caro firmly clasped on her knee. Her face was alight with warmth, affection and excitement. She was reciting to her
‘Four
horses stuck in a bog,
Three
monkeys tied to a clog,
Two
pudding ends would choke a dog, With a gaping, wide-mouthed waddling FROG
'
. Caro bounced up and down in time, squealing. Lulu wriggled forward, thrusting her elbow into Janet
'
s stomach. She leant over into the front; it was her day after all. She took a deep breath and began to chant:
‘
High jump tomato, high jump tomato!
'
Rhona and Caro joined in. Francis was silent in the front; he was studying a map. Vera drove on imperviously. Janet unwound the window. The scent of wet turf and bog myrtle wafted up to her; she could hear a curlew and lambs crying.
‘
High jump tomato, high jump tomato!
' ‘
Just fancy,
'
said Francis,
‘
there
'
s a place called Balloch and near it there
'
s a place called Luss. Gives one curiously to think, doesn
'
t it?
' ‘
Whatever do you mean?
'
asked Vera. Then abruptly,
‘
That
'
s quite enough, Francis. Keep your schoolboy humour for your friends.
' ‘
Do you really think,
'
inquired Francis,
‘
that they should be going on like that about tomatoes? You know how Janet is with tomatoes. And carrots.
'
Janet
'
s mouth went dry; her stomach lurched.
‘
Please stop, quick, let me out,
'
she gasped. Bent double, heaving helplessly by a gorse bush she thought,
‘
He did that on purpose.
'