Wild Mountain Thyme

  He stubbed out his cigarette, and leaned over Victoria once more, in order to put the ashtray on the floor. She found that she was smiling into the darkness. She said, “You know, I think I’d rather go to Benchoile than anywhere else in the world.”

  “It’s better than that. You’re going to Benchoile with me.”

  “And Thomas.”

  “You’re going to Benchoile with me and Thomas.”

  “I can’t think of anything more perfect.”

  Oliver gently placed his hand on her stomach; slowly, he slid it up her body, over her rib cage, to cup one small, naked breast. “I can,” he told her.

  5

  SUNDAY

  In the middle of February, the cold weather arrived. Christmas had been sunny and the New Year mild and still, and the weeks of winter crept past, with some rain and a little frost and nothing much else. “We’re going to be lucky,” said people who knew no better, but the shepherds and the hill-farmers were wiser. They eyed the skies and smelled the wind and knew that the worst was still to come. The winter was simply waiting. Biding its time.

  The real frosts started at the beginning of the month. Then came the sleet, swiftly turning to snow, and then the storms. “Straight from the Urals,” said Roddy Dunbeath, as the bitter wind whined in over the sea. The sea turned grey and angry, sullen as the color of wet slate, and creaming breakers flooded in over the Creagan sands, depositing a long tidemark of undigested rubbish. Old fish boxes, ragged nets, knotted twine, plastic detergent bottles, rubber tires, even a disfigured shoe or two.

  Inland, the hills were cloaked in white, their summits lost in the dark, racing sky. Snow blew from the open fields and piled in steep drifts, choking the narrow roads. Sheep, heavy in their winter wool, could survive, but the cattle searched for shelter in the angles of the drystone dikes, and the farmers tractored fodder to them twice a day.

  Accustomed to, and expecting, cruel winters, the local people accepted all this hardship with stoic calm. The smaller hill crofts and isolated cottages were cut off entirely, but walls were thick and peat stacks high, and there was always plenty oatmeal, and feedstuff for the stock. Life continued. The scarlet post-van made its daily round of the glens, and sturdy housewives, wearing rubber boots and three cardigans, emerged from doorways to feed hens and hang out lines of washing in the freezing wind.

  Now, it was Sunday.

  The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want.

  He makes me down to lie

  In pastures green …

  The pipes in the church were faintly warm, but the draughts excruciating. The congregation, thinned to a mere handful by the weather, bravely raised their voices in the last hymn of the morning service, but their efforts were almost drowned by the fury of the wind outside.

  Jock Dunbeath, standing alone in the Benchoile pew, held his hymnbook in mittened hands but did not look at it, partly because he had sung this hymn all his life and knew the words by heart and partly because, by some oversight, he had left his reading spectacles at home.

  Ellen had fussed over him. “You must indeed be mad thinking you’ll get to the kirk today. The roads are blocked. Would you not stop off at Davey’s and get him to drive you?”

  “Davey has enough to do.”

  “Then why not sit by the fire and listen to the nice man on the wireless? Would that not do as well for once?”

  But he was stubborn, immovable, and she finally sighed and tossed her eyes to heaven and gave in. “But don’t be blaming me if you die in a drift on your way.”

  She sounded quite excited at the thought of such a happening. Disaster was the spice of life to Ellen, and she was always the first to say “I told you so.” Irritated by her, in a hurry to get away, he forgot his spectacles, and was then too pigheaded to go back for them. However, his determination was vindicated, and, in the old Landrover, grinding in bottom gear down the four miles of the glen, he had managed to make it safely and had come to church. Chilled as he was, and blind as a bat without his glasses, he was glad that he had made the effort.

  All his life, unless prevented by illness, war, or some other act of God, he had come to church on Sunday mornings. As a child because he had had to; as a soldier because he needed to; as a grown man because he was the Laird of Benchoile and it was important to be involved, to uphold the established traditions, to set a good example. And now, in his age, he came for comfort and reassurance. The old church, the words of the service, the tunes of the hymns, were some of the very few things in his life that hadn’t changed. Perhaps, at the end of the day, the only thing.

  Goodness and mercy all my days,

  Shall surely follow me,

  And in God’s house for ever more

  My dwelling place shall be.

  He closed his hymnbook, bowed his head for the blessing, collected his driving gloves and his old tweed cap from the seat beside him, buttoned up his overcoat, wound himself up in his scarf, started up the aisle.

  “Morning, sir.” It was a friendly sort of church. People came out with conversation in their ordinary voices—none of those pious whispers as though there were a body dying in the next room. “Terrible weather. Good morning, Colonel Dunbeath, and how are the roads up with you?… Well, Jock, and you’re a fine one, making the trip to the kirk on a day like this.”

  That was the minister himself, coming up at Jock from behind. Jock turned. The minister, the Reverend Christie, was a well-set-up man with a pair of shoulders like a rugby player, but still Jock topped him by half a head.

  He said, “I thought you’d be a bit thin on the ground this morning. Glad I made the effort.”

  “I imagined you all cut off up at Benchoile.”

  “The telephone’s dead. There must be a line down somewhere. But I managed the road in the Landrover.”

  “It’s a bitter day. Why don’t you come into the Manse for a glass of sherry before you start back?”

  His eyes were kind. He was a good man, with a homely and hospitable wife. For a moment Jock let himself imagine the living room at the Manse. The chair, which would be drawn up for him by an enormous fire, the air fragrant with the smell of roasting Sunday mutton. The Christies had always done themselves very well. He thought of the dark, sweet, warming sherry, the comfortable presence of Mrs. Christie, and for a small instant was tempted.

  But, “No,” he said, “I think I’d better get back before the weather worsens. Ellen will be expecting me. And I would not want the constable to find me frozen in a snowdrift with the smell of alcohol on my breath.”

  “Ah, well, that’s understandable.” The Minister’s kindly countenance and robust manner masked his concern. He had been shocked this morning to see Jock sitting solitary in his pew. Most of the congregation, for some reason, gathered themselves at the back of his church, and the laird, isolated like some outcast, had stuck out like a sore thumb.

  He looked old. It was the first time that Mr. Christie had seen him looking really old. Too thin, too tall, his tweed hanging loose on the lanky frame, the fingers of his hands swollen and red with the cold. The collar of his shirt was loose on his neck, and there had been a hesitancy in his actions, fumbling for his hymnbook, for the pound note that was his weekly contribution to the offertory plate.

  Jock Dunbeath of Benchoile. How old was he? Sixty-eight, sixty-nine? Not old for nowadays. Not old for hereabouts, where the menfolk seemed to go on well into their eighties, sprightly and active, digging their gardens and keeping a few hens, and making small tottery excursions to the village inn for their evening dram. But last September Jock had suffered a slight heart-attack, and since then, thought Mr. Christie, he seemed to have gone visibly downhill. And yet, what could one do to help? If he had been one of the country folk, Mr. Christie would have gone visiting, taken a batch of his wife’s scones, perhaps offered to cut a stack of kindling; but Jock was not country folk. He was Lieutenant Colonel John Rathbone Dunbeath, late of the Cameron Highlanders, the Laird of Benchoile and a Justice of the
Peace. He was proud, but he was not poor. He was old and lonely, but he was not poor. On the contrary, he was a well-respected landowner with a large house and a farm in hand, twelve thousand or so acres of hill, a thousand or more sheep, some arable land, some stalking, some fishing. In all respects, an enviable property. If the big house was rambling and shabby, and the laird’s shirt had a frayed collar, it was not because he was poor. It was because his wife was dead, he was childless, and old Ellen Tarbat, housekeeper to Jock and his brother Roddy, was getting beyond it.

  And somewhere, sometime, before the eyes of them all, the old man seemed to have given up.

  Mr. Christie searched for some remark that would keep their conversation going. “And how is the family” was a useful starter on most occasions, but not this one, because Jock didn’t have a family. Only Roddy. Oh well, thought the minister, any port in a storm.

  “And how is your brother keeping?”

  Jock responded with a gleam of humor. “You make him sound like a box of herring. I think he’s all right. We don’t see that much of each other. Keep to ourselves, you know. Roddy in his house and me in mine.” He cleared his throat. “Sunday lunch. We have Sunday lunch together. It’s companionable.”

  Mr. Christie wondered what they talked about. He had never known two brothers so different, one so reserved and the other so outgoing. Roddy was a writer, an artist, a raconteur. The books that he had written, some almost twenty years or so ago, were all still in print, and the paperback editions could always be found on station bookstalls and in the racks of the most unlikely country shops. A classic said the blurb on the back covers, under the photograph of Roddy that had been taken thirty years ago. A breath of the outdoors. Roddy Dunbeath knows his Scotland and presents it, with native perception, within the pages of this book.

  Roddy did not come to church unless it was Christmas or Easter or somebody’s funeral, but whether this was due to his inner convictions or his inherent idleness, the minister did not know. Roddy did not even appear very often in the village. Jess Guthrie, the shepherd’s wife, did his shopping for him. “And how is Mr. Roddy, Jess?” the grocer would inquire, fitting the two bottles of Dewars down the side of the carton of groceries, and Jess would avert her eyes from the bottles and reply, “Oh, he’s not so bad,” which could have meant anything.

  “Is he working on anything just now?” Mr. Christie asked.

  “He mentioned something about an article for the Scottish Field. I … I never really know.” Jock ran a diffident hand down the back of his head, smoothing down the thinning grey hair. “He never talks much about his work.”

  A lesser man might have been discouraged, but Mr. Christie pressed on, and asked after the third Dunbeath brother.

  “And what news of Charlie?”

  “I had a letter at Christmas. He and Susan were skiing. At Aspen. That’s in Colorado, you know,” he added in his mannerly way, as though Mr. Christie mightn’t.

  “Was John with them?”

  There was a small pause. Jock put back his head. His eyes, pale and watering a little in the cold, fixed on some distant, unfocused spot beyond the minister’s head.

  “John doesn’t work in New York any longer. Got sent to the London branch of his bank. Works there now. Been working there for six months or more.”

  “But that’s splendid.”

  The church was nearly empty now. They began to tread, side by side, up the aisle towards the main door.

  “Yes. Good thing for John. Step up the ladder. Clever boy. Suppose he’ll be president before we know where we are. I mean president of the bank, not president of the United States of America…”

  But Mr. Christie was not to be diverted by this mild joke. “I didn’t mean that, Jock. I meant that if he’s living in London, it shouldn’t be too hard for him to get up to Sutherland and spend a few days with you and Roddy.”

  Jock stopped dead and turned. His eyes narrowed. He was suddenly alert, fierce as an old eagle.

  Mr. Christie was a little taken aback by that piercing glance. “Just an idea. It seems to me that you need a bit of young company.” And someone to keep an eye on you, as well, he thought, but he did not say this aloud. “It must be ten years since John was last here.”

  “Yes. Ten years.” They moved on, slow-paced. “He was eighteen.” The old man appeared to be debating with himself. The minister waited tactfully, and was rewarded. “Wrote to him the other day. Suggested he come up in the summer. He was never interested in the grouse, but I could give him a bit of fishing.”

  “I’m sure he needs no such bait to lure him north.”

  “Haven’t had an answer yet.”

  “Give him time. He’ll be a busy man.”

  “Yes. The only thing is, these days I’m not quite sure how much time I have to give.” Jock smiled, that rare wry smile that warmed the chill from his features and never failed to disarm. “But then, it comes to all of us. You of all men know that.”

  They let themselves out of the church, and the wind caught the minister’s robes and sent the black skirts ballooning. From the porch, he watched Jock Dunbeath clamber painfully up into the old Landrover and set off on his uncertain journey home. Despite himself he sighed, heavy-hearted. He had tried. But, at the end of the day, what could anybody do?

  * * *

  No more snow had fallen and Jock was glad of this. He trundled through the quiet, shuttered village and over the bridge and turned inland where the road sign pointed to Benchoile and Loch Muie. The road was narrow and single-tracked, with passing places marked by black and white painted posts, but there was no other traffic of any sort. The Sabbath, even in weather like this, cast its gloom over the countryside. Beset by icy draughts, hunched over the wheel, with his scarf up to his ears and his tweed cap pulled down over his beak of a nose, Jock Dunbeath let the Landrover take its own way home, like a reliable horse, up the tracks in the snow that they had made themselves that morning.

  He thought about what the minister had said. He was right, of course. A good man. Concerned and trying not to show it. But he was right.

  You need a bit of young company.

  He remembered Benchoile in the old days when he, and his friends, and his brothers’ friends, had all filled the house. He remembered the hall overflowing with fishing boots and creels, tea on the lawn beneath the silver birches, and in August the sunlit purple hills echoing to the crack of guns. He remembered house parties for the Northern Meetings Hunt Ball in Inverness, and girls coming downstairs in long, pretty dresses, and the old station wagon driving off to collect guests off the train at Creagan Halt.

  But those days, like everything else, were gone. For the brothers, youth had gone. Roddy had never married; Charlie had found himself a wife, and a sweet one too, but she was an American girl, and he had gone back with her to the States, and made a life for himself as a cattleman, ranching his father-in-law’s spread in Southwest Colorado. And although Jock had married, he and Lucy had never had the children they so ardently wanted. They had been so happy together that even this cruel trick of fate could not mar their content. But when she had died, five years ago, he had realized that he had never before known the true meaning of loneliness.

  You need a bit of young company.

  Funny, the minister bringing John’s name up like that, just days after Jock had written him the letter. Almost as though he had known about it. As a child, John had visited Benchoile regularly, in the company of his parents, and then, as he grew older, alone with his father. He had been a quiet, serious little boy, intelligent beyond his years, and with a searching curiosity that manifested itself in a long stream of endless questions. But even in those days, Roddy had been his favorite uncle, and the two of them would go off for hours on end, to search for shells, or watch the birds, or stand, on still summer evenings, casting their trout rods over the deep brown pools of the river. In all respects, a likeable and satisfactory boy, but still, Jock had never been able to get close to him. The main reason for
this was that John did not share with Jock his abiding passion for shooting. John would blissfully lure and catch and slay a fish, and very soon became accomplished at the sport, but he refused to go up the hill with a gun, and if he stalked a deer, would carry nothing more deadly than his camera.

  And so the letter had not been an easy one to write. For John had not been to Benchoile for ten years, and this gap of time had left a yawning void that Jock had found almost impossible to bridge with words. Not, he assured himself quickly, that he didn’t like the boy. He remembered John Dunbeath at eighteen as a composed, reserved young man with disturbingly mature attitudes and opinions. Jock respected these, but he found his coolness and his polite self-confidence a little disconcerting. And since then they had somehow lost touch. So much had happened. Lucy had died and the empty years had slipped away. Charlie had written, of course, giving news. John had gone to Cambridge, played squash and rackets for the University, and left with an honors degree in economics. He had then returned to New York and there joined the Warburg Investment Corporation, a position that he achieved entirely on his own merits and without any assistance from his influential American connections. For some time he had been at the Harvard Business School, and after some time, inevitably, he had married. Charlie was too loyal a father to spell out the details of this misalliance to Jock, but gradually, reading between the lines of his brother’s letters, Jock realized that all was not well with the young couple. So he was distressed, but not surprised, when the news came through that the marriage had broken up, divorce proceedings were being taken, and legal settlements made. The only good thing about it was that there were no children.

  The divorce, painfully, was finally accomplished, and John’s career, apparently untouched by the traumas of his personal life, continued to go from strength to strength. The appointment in London was the latest in a succession of steady promotions. Banking was a world about which Jock Dunbeath knew nothing, and this was another reason why he felt so totally out of touch with his American nephew.