Stormy Petrel (12 page)

‘Tomatoes already?' I was actually fairly ignorant about the timing of tomatoes, or indeed, of any home-grown vegetables. But in view of the admiration that had obviously been expected, it was the right thing to say.

‘My sister,' said Mrs McDougall. ‘Duncan – that's her man – spends near all his time on the garden when he's not fishing. They have a greenhouse, and he keeps adding to that – he's a handy man, is Duncan – and they are always earlier than anyone else around here.' She reached the end of a row, paused for a moment to count, then turned her knitting and started again. ‘He comes from Achiltibuie, and worked for a bit at the hydroponics there. So now he's trying the same way here. Have you been there? I have not, but my sister worked in a hotel there for a time – that is where they met – and she says it is very remarkable.'

I said no, I hadn't, and what were hydroponics? She told me, while the kettle sang gently on the top of the Rayburn, and the creamy Aran knitting grew perceptibly on her lap. What she told me about vegetable growing meant very little to me, so I can barely recall now what was said, except that she would let me have some strawberries on Monday for my brother's supper, but I remember how easily the talk went, my unexpected visit serenely taken for granted, with no query as to why I had come. Just a pleased acceptance of the company, and a chat while the kettle sang its way to the boil.

It boiled, and she laid the knitting aside and made tea. From a tin in the cupboard scones were produced, and spread with butter and honey. I accepted plate and cup, thanked her, and wondered how on earth, into a conversation which had ranged from hydroponics to knitting to the situation in the smaller countries of the Warsaw Pact to the best breed of wool for spinning tweed to the honey and the siting of the hives – how on earth I could decently introduce my queries about Ewen Mackay.

I need not have worried. What I was experiencing was an islander's version of the tea-ceremony and its ritual. As she took her own cup and settled herself again in her chair, Mrs McDougall looked at me over her spectacles and said comfortably: ‘The girls will have told you about Ewen Mackay.'

‘Yes, they did.'

‘And I think that Archie told you that your cottage used to be where his family lived. So perhaps you are worried in case he comes home, now that he is back in these parts.' It was a statement, not a question.

I hesitated, then shook my head. ‘Not really. But I did feel I'd like to know a bit more about him. Why he went to jail, for instance. Was it for something he did up here – in the islands?'

‘No. It was in London.'

‘But his parents still lived here then?'

‘They did. And of course everyone knew all about it, just as they knew that the Mackays, poor souls, had done everything they could for the boy ever since they took him in for adoption.' She sipped tea. ‘You know that they left Moila. It was partly for shame after all the talk and the things that the papers said, but as well as that they wanted to cut him off for good.' A little smile. ‘“For good.” That is exactly what it was. He was bad all through, that one, and they were good folk. They wanted rid of him for good, and I think they were a bit afraid he might come back, and then how could they turn him out?'

‘Afraid of him? Of violence, you mean?'

‘I do not know. I did hear once that he had threatened his father, but I do not know if this is true, and they, poor souls, never said a word against him.'

‘Mrs McDougall,' I said flatly, ‘what was he sent down for?'

She set her cup aside and picked up her knitting again. ‘Miss Fenemore, they do say that if a man has done wrong, and has been punished for it, that should be the end of it. Do you not agree? It is true the man is bad, but he has done two years, almost, in prison. It might be better to forget it.' The needles clicked. ‘No, do not look like that, lassie. I'm not calling shame on you. I blame myself for talking to those other lassies. I would have done better to have held my tongue.'

‘You did hold your tongue. You said nothing to me. You only let it out to the girls because you got a shock when they said they'd seen him, and you were afraid yourself that he might come here and demand his parents' address from you. Isn't that true?'

‘Aye, it's true. Not “afraid”, though. There's no harm could come to me here, with good neighbours round and about all the while. And he'd not offer harm to me, I think. But you, lassie –' once more I was promoted from ‘Miss Fenemore' – ‘there's no need for you to fear him coming to the cottage, even though he has a boat and could get into the bay without anyone seeing him. He'll have been told, for sure, that his folks are gone, and the place is let.'

‘Yes. Well . . . Thank you for the tea, Mrs McDougall. It's been lovely talking with you, but if I'm to get home . . .' I rose. ‘Since I'm here, may I use the telephone, please, before I go?'

‘You may.' The knitting was in her lap and she was regarding me steadily over the spectacles. ‘Just sit you down again for a minute, lassie. It wasn't just for idleness that you came to ask about that rapscallion, was it? Are you afraid to sleep in that cottage? Because if you are—'

‘No, it's all right. It's not that.'

She nodded. ‘I thought so. It is something else.' Silence for a minute. She seemed to be deciding something about the knitting in her lap. Then she said, with apparent irrelevance: ‘Those two lassies, they think the world of you.'

I could think of nothing to say to that, so I said nothing.

She nodded again, as if I had answered her. ‘Very well, I will tell you what you ask me, and I do not want to know why you ask it.' She picked up her knitting again, and the needles clicked. ‘It came out in the court that he had been robbing old ladies . . . confidence trickster was the word. He would watch the notices in the papers, and when someone died and the widow was left alone, he would go there and think up some sort of lie – he lied always, as a boy, even when there was no need, and he looked so clean and innocent that if you did not know him you would believe him, every time. And sometimes even though you did know him . . . So he would use the charm and the lies on the old lady in her grief, and cheat her out of everything he could get. The one they took him for in the end, she was eighty-five years old, and ailing, and he robbed her of her life-savings, and that was less than three hundred pounds. He would spend that much, they said, in a week. He pleaded guilty to three other offences. Do you see what I mean about shame?'

‘Yes, I see.' I was thinking hard. Should I tell her here and now that Ewen Mackay had already been to the cottage? It was possible that his return to Moila had been sparked by the notice in the papers of Mrs Hamilton's death. He had been in jail when that occurred. On his release he had come straight up to Moila, and by last weekend – it was possibly true enough – had not heard of his parents' departure, but had thought he could go straight home. And then what? There was no elderly widow to con, but there was an empty house, and one he knew well. He must know, at least casually, what there was of value there. So, no con-tricks needed here, just a simple robbery? But his luck was out, in that the new owner, who was no old lady, but a sufficiently able-bodied young man, was here before him. And knew him.

And Neil, for his part, knew that if anyone on Moila heard of his, Neil Hamilton's, return, the news would fly around and certainly reach Ewen Mackay. So, since for the present Neil preferred to lie low and find out just what Ewen was up to, I could not tell Mrs McDougall of Ewen's night-time visit. If I could not reassure her by telling her Neil was there, and watching, it was possible, more, probable, that she would insist either on my moving into a lodging in the village, or that some of the men from the village would keep watch on Otters' Bay and the empty house.

I would have to talk to Neil first. Tomorrow. Tonight all I could do was make sure of Crispin. I thanked Mrs McDougall again and went to the telephone.

The hospital answered, with cheering news. It seemed that my brother would soon be on his way. He had left that morning, to stay with his Glasgow friends; and yes, he had left the Glasgow number in case I should call.

I called, and Crispin answered, so cheerfully that I knew all was well.

‘Yes, I'm all set to come up tomorrow. We'll be at the Columba Hotel, and on the ferry first thing Monday.'

‘“We?”'

‘Yes, there was someone else heading for Oban, and we were in the crash together. He'll be getting the same train. To tell you the truth, I'm quite glad of his help. I'm what they laughingly call mobile, but carrying a suitcase, as well as all my camera junk, is a little beyond me as yet.'

‘But the foot really is mending?'

‘It's fine. Another day or two and I'll be skipping like a ram on the high hills. Depending, of course, on what you've got laid on for me. Anything new?'

‘Only several hundred thousand gulls and shags and things. But I did see black guillemots swimming down in the bay, and a gully full of boulders where they probably nest.'

‘Sounds great. Accessible?'

‘From the sea. And there's a boat handy. Don't forget the binocs.'

‘Is it likely? Anything else you need me to bring? The local supermarket's open on Sundays now, and Laura's going there in the morning, she tells me.'

‘Nothing I can think of, unless you want something fancy in the way of cheeses. Can't get those here. Oh, and some cream, too. You're getting strawberries for supper on Monday.'

‘Good heavens. The only ones I've seen here are from California, and they don't taste like the real thing at all. What are the Hebrides coming to? Greenhouse effect?'

‘No. We've got hydroponics. I must go now. I've got a long lonely road home in front of me. Good night, Cris.'

‘Good night. Take care, and
hasta la vista
.'

We rang off.

Nearly ten o'clock, and still light. I saw no one on the long lonely road home, and the only enemy that attacked me was the midges.

13

I slept later than usual next morning, and woke to see half past nine on my bedside clock, and a cascade of raindrops chasing each other down the window. By the time I had had breakfast and done the morning's chores it was after eleven and, though the rain was letting up, it was still wet enough to keep anyone indoors who didn't have to go out.

I decided that I didn't have to go out. It was not a hard decision to take. Rationalised, it meant that Neil already knew enough about Ewen Mackay's record, and of course he was already on the watch for any more suspicious moves. If he, Neil, was content to leave the house unwatched by day, and to spend his time looking at rocks on the broch island, then I could stay indoors with a clear conscience, and wait for the rainstorm to pass.

I got back to work, by which I mean that I got my papers and notes out, and then sat looking at them for what seemed like a dreary lifetime, and was really probably only twenty minutes. The words I had written – and had almost, in the interval, forgotten – mocked me and were meaningless. My notes told me what was to happen next, but my brain no longer knew how to move plot and people forward. Block. Complete block. I sat and stared at the paper in front of me and tried to blank out the present and get back into my story – forward, that is, into my invented future, and out of the world of queries and vague apprehensions.

From experience, I knew what to do. Write. Write anything. Bad sentences, meaningless sentences, anything to get the mind fixed again to that sheet of paper and oblivious of the ‘real' world. Write until the words begin to make sense, the cogs mesh, the wheels start to turn, the creaking movement quickens and becomes a smooth, oiled run, and then, with luck, exhaustion will be forgotten, and the real writing will begin. But look up once from that paper, get up from the table to make coffee or stir the fire, even just raise your head to look at the view outside the window, and you may as well give up until tomorrow. Or for ever.

It was the rain that saved me. I could not have looked out of the window if I had tried, the chores were all done, and there was nothing whatever to do except sit at that table and write.

I wrote. A year or so later, or it may have been an hour, I crumpled up four sheets of paper and threw them to the floor, and started another, and I was there. And in another light-year or two I was through the word-barrier, and the book had suddenly reached the stage – the wonderful moment to get to – where I could walk right into my imaginary country and see things that I had not consciously created, and listen to people talking and watch them moving, all apparently independent of me.

I came out of it and saw the window clear and the sun shining and the heavy clouds rolled back to leave a blue, washed sky. I could hear gulls crying, and the soft, flattened whispering of the sea. My watch said twenty past one.

Scrambled eggs again, and coffee, then I made a thermos of tea, pushed that, with a packet of biscuits, into the pocket of my anorak, and set off along the cliff path.

It was half past two by my watch when I reached the Hamilton house. I went to the back door – still fast shut – and knocked. The sound echoed through the silence with that hollow, unmistakably empty noise. Perhaps he was working on the island again. I made my way round the house and crossed the mossy terrace to look in through the drawing-room window. Nobody there, of course. It looked just the same. If he was really living in the house he must be taking pains to leave no signs of his occupancy. Somehow the knowledge irked me. He had been right, I thought; in spite of what the girls and Mrs McDougall had told me, the whole idea of a ‘mystery' was, in this place, wrong and irritating. Whatever Ewen Mackay was up to, it could really hardly matter. Must not be allowed to matter. He no longer belonged here. Had never belonged. He was the changeling of the classic tale, thrust on good people, who was to repay good with evil. The hints he had thrown out, that he was connected in some illegitimate way with the Hamilton family, could be dismissed as a typical lie told to impress, another Cape Horn. I wondered what his real origins were, and if there really was such a thing as original sin, people born evil. It was fashionable not to think so, but there were people of whom it had to be believed. For instance—