Snow in April

  “Hallo.”

  “Liz.”

  “Oh, Oliver, are you ringing to say you’ll be late? Because if so it doesn’t matter, I forgot to put the pheasant in and besides…”

  He interrupted her. “No, I didn’t ring for that. I rang to call off. I can’t make it.”

  “But … I … Father said…” and then in quite a different voice, “Are you all right?” She sounded as though he might suddenly have gone mad. “Not ill, or anything?”

  “No. It’s just that I can’t make it … I’ll explain…”

  She said, her voice cool, “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the girl and the boy you’ve got staying at Cairney?”

  Oliver was astonished. He had said nothing to Duncan about the Cliburns, not with any intention of concealment, but simply because there had been other and more important subjects to discuss. “How did you know?”

  “Oh, the old glen grapevine. Don’t forget, our Mrs Douglas is Cooper’s sister-in-law. You can’t keep any secrets living up here, Oliver. You should know that by now.”

  He felt vaguely nettled, as though she were accusing him of being deceitful.

  “It’s no secret.”

  “Are they still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “I shall have to come and investigate. It’s intriguing.”

  He ignored the innuendo in her voice, and dropped the subject. “Do you forgive me for being so mannerless this evening, and crying off at such short notice?”

  “It doesn’t matter. These little things crop up from time to time. It just means all the more pheasant for Father and me. But come another night.”

  “If you’ll ask me.”

  “I’m asking you now.” But her voice was still crisp. “All you have to do, once your social life has sorted itself out, is to give me a ring.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Oliver.

  “’Bye, then.”

  “Goodbye.”

  But before the word was out of his mouth, she had already put down her receiver and cut him off.

  She was annoyed with him and with some reason. He thought wistfully of the carefully set dinner-table, the candles, the pheasant and the wine. Dinner at Rossie Hill was never, at any time, an occasion to be sneezed at. He swore softly, hating the whole day, wishing for it to be over. He poured himself a drink, stronger than usual, added a splash of soda, poured some of it mindlessly down his throat, and then, feeling remotely comforted, went to look for Jody.

  But he never got that far. Instead, in the passage he met Mrs Cooper, carrying a tray. There was a strange expression on her face, almost furtive, and when she saw him, her pace quickened so that she could get through the kitchen door before he reached her side.

  “What’s wrong, Mrs Cooper?”

  With her back against the swing-door she stopped, looking anguished.

  “She won’t eat a mouthful, Oliver.” He looked at the tray, then took the lid off the soup bowl. Steam rose in a fragrant cloud. “I did my best, I told her what you said, but she won’t eat a mouthful. She says she’s frightened of being sick again.”

  Oliver put the lid back on the soup bowl, the whisky glass on the tray, then took the lot from Mrs Cooper’s hands.

  He said, “We’ll see about that.”

  He was tired and depressed no longer, simply marvellously angry. Exasperated beyond words. He marched upstairs, two at a time, went down the passage and burst into the Cairney guest room without so much as a knock on the door. She lay in the middle of the huge, pink-quilted double bed, pillows scattered on the floor, ringed by the small light of a pink-shaded bedside lamp.

  Seeing her thus only increased his irritation. She was a bloody girl, she walked into his house, turned everything upside down, ruined his evening and finally lay in his own spare bed refusing to eat and driving everybody up the wall. He strode across the room and dumped the tray with some force down upon the bedside-table. The lamp shook slightly, his whisky danced and splashed.

  She watched him flatly from the bed, her eyes enormous, her hair spread and tangled like skeins of creamy silk. Without a word he began gathering up the pillows, then pulled her into a sitting position and stuffed them behind her, as though she were a rag doll incapable of sitting up on her own.

  Her expression was mutinous, her underlip swollen as a spoiled child’s. He picked the napkin off the tray and tied it around her neck as though he had intentions of throttling her. He took the lid off the soup bowl.

  She said, clearly, “If you make me eat that, I shall be sick.”

  Oliver reached for the spoon. “And if you are sick I shall beat you.”

  The lower lip trembled at the injustice of such a threat. “Now, or when I’m well again?” she inquired bitterly.

  “Both,” said Oliver brutally. “Now open your mouth.”

  When she did, more out of astonishment than anything else, he poured in the first spoonful. As she swallowed it, she gagged slightly, and sent him a look of reproachful appeal, to which he simply raised a cautionary eyebrow. The second spoonful went down. And the third. And the fourth. By now she had started to cry. Silently her eyes filled with tears, over-spilled, poured down her cheeks. Oliver ignored them, relentlessly feeding her the broth. By the time it was finished she was awash with weeping. He set down the empty bowl on the tray, and said, without sympathy, “You see, you weren’t sick.”

  Caroline gave a great sob, incapable of comment. All at once his temper died, he wanted to smile, he was filled with a ridiculous and tender amusement. His final burst of rage, like a thunderstorm, had cleared his own personal air, and he was suddenly quite calm and relaxed, with all the troubles and frustrations of the day slotted away in their correct perspectives. All that remained was this peaceful, pretty room, the glow of the pink-shaded light, the remains of his whisky in its glass, and Caroline Cliburn, finally fed and subdued.

  He pulled the napkin gently free of her neck and handed it to her. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “you could use this as a handkerchief.”

  She sent him a grateful look and took it, wiped at cheeks, at eyes, and finally, lustily, blew her nose. A strand of hair lying close to her cheek was wet from her tears, and he put out a finger to smooth it back, away behind her ear.

  It was a small, instinctive action of comfort, unpremeditated, but the unexpected physical contact sparked off a chain reaction. For an instant Caroline’s face was suffused with astonishment, and then an overwhelming relief. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the rough wool of his sweater, and without thinking about it, he wrapped his arms around her thin shoulders and pulled her close, the top of her silky head tight beneath his chin. He could feel her fragility, her very bones, the beating of her heart. After a little he said, “You’ll really have to tell me what it’s all about, won’t you?”

  And Caroline nodded, thumping her head against his chest. “Yes,” came her muffled voice. “I really think I will.”

  She started, where it had all started, on Aphros. “We went to live there after my mother died. Jody was just a baby, he could speak Greek before he spoke English. My father was an architect, he went out there to design houses, but English people started discovering Aphros and wanting to live there, and he ended up as a sort of property agent, buying houses and overseeing while they were converted and that sort of thing. Perhaps if Angus had been brought up in England he would have been different. I don’t know. But we went to local schools because my father couldn’t afford to send us home.”

  She broke off, and started trying to explain about Angus. “He’d always lived such a free life. My father never bothered about us or where we were. He knew we were safe. Angus spent most of his time with the fishermen and when he left school, he just stayed on Aphros and it never seemed to occur to anybody that he might get a job. And then Diana came.”

  “Your stepmother.”

  “Yes. She came to the island to buy a house, she came t
o my father to ask him to act as her agent. But she never bought the house, because she married him instead and lived with us.”

  “Did that make a lot of difference?”

  “To Jody it did. And to me. But not to Angus. Never to Angus.”

  “Did you like her?”

  “Yes.” Caroline pleated the edge of the sheet, carefully, precisely, as though it were a finicky task directed by Diana and to be accomplished to her own exact standards. “Yes, I liked her. And so did Jody. But Angus was too old to be influenced by her and she … she was too wise to try to influence him. But then my father died, and she said that we must all come back to London, but Angus didn’t want to come. He didn’t want to stay on Aphros either. He bought a second-hand Mini Moke and he went to India, through Syria and Turkey, and we used to get postcards from him of outlandish places and nothing much else.”

  “But you came back to London?”

  “Yes. Diana had a house in Milton Gardens. That’s where we still live.”

  “And Angus?”

  “He came there once, but it didn’t work. He and Diana had a terrible row because he wouldn’t conform or cut his hair or shave his beard or put on a pair of shoes. You know. And anyway, by that time Diana had married again, an old boy-friend called Shaun Carpenter. So now she’s Mrs Carpenter.”

  “And Mr Carpenter?”

  “He’s nice, but he’s not a strong enough character for Diana. She gets her own way, she manipulates people, all of us, really. But in the most tactful possible way. It’s hard to describe.”

  “And what were you doing all this time?”

  “Oh, I finished school and then I went to Drama School.” She looked at Oliver with the ghost of a smile. “Diana didn’t want that. She was frightened I’d turn into a hippie or go on to drugs or get like Angus.”

  Oliver grinned. “And did you?”

  “No. But she also said I wouldn’t stay the course and she was right. I mean, I got through Drama School all right, and I even got a job in a Repertory theatre, but then…” She stopped. Oliver’s face was oddly gentle, his eyes very understanding. He was easy to talk to. She had not realized how easy he would be to talk to. He had done nothing, all day, but indicate in every possible way that he thought she was a fool, but instinctively, she knew that he would not call her a fool, simply because she had fallen in love with the wrong man “… well, I got involved with this man. And I was stupid, I suppose, and innocent, and I thought that he wanted to go on being involved with me. But actors are single-minded creatures, and he was very career-minded and ambitious and he moved on and left me behind. He was called Drennan Colefield and he’s quite famous now. You’ve maybe heard of him…”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “… he married a French actress. I think they live in Hollywood now. He’s going to make a string of films. Anyway, after Drennan everything went wrong, and then I got pneumonia, and in the end I just gave it all up.”

  She began to pleat the sheet again. “And Angus?” Oliver prompted gently. “When did he turn up in Scotland?”

  “Jody got a letter from him, a week or two ago. But he didn’t tell about it until last Sunday night.”

  “And why was it so important to see him again?”

  “Because of Diana and Shaun going to Canada. Shaun’s got this posting to Canada, and they’re going as soon as … well, very soon. And they’re taking Jody with them. And Jody doesn’t want to go, although Diana doesn’t know that. But he told me and he asked me to come to Scotland with him and find Angus. He thought Angus might come to London and make a home for Jody so that Jody doesn’t have to go.”

  “Is that likely to happen?”

  Caroline said, with bleak truth, “Not particularly. But I had to try. For Jody’s sake I had to try.”

  “Couldn’t Jody stay with you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Caroline shrugged. “It just wouldn’t work out. Anyway, Diana would never agree to it. But Angus is different. Angus is twenty-five now. If Angus wanted to keep Jody, Diana couldn’t stop him.”

  “I see.”

  “And so we came to find him. And we borrowed the car from Caleb Ash, he’s a friend of my father’s but he lives in London, in the flat at the other end of Diana’s garden. He likes Diana, but I don’t think he approves of the way she organizes us all and runs our lives. That’s why he lent us his car, on condition we told him where we were coming.”

  “But you didn’t tell Diana?”

  “We said we were coming to Scotland. That was all. We left a letter. If we’d told her more, she’d have caught up with us long before we got here. She’s that sort of person.”

  “Isn’t she going to be very worried about you?”

  “I expect so. But we said we’d be back on Friday…”

  “But you won’t. Not if Angus doesn’t get back.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t you think it might be a good idea to telephone her?”

  “No. Not yet. For Jody’s sake, we mustn’t.”

  “She’d understand, surely.”

  “In a way, but not entirely. If Angus were a different sort of person…” Her voice tailed hopelessly away.

  “So what are we going to do?” asked Oliver.

  The “we” disarmed her. She said “I don’t know” but the desperate expression had gone from her face. And then, hopefully, “Wait?”

  “For how long?”

  “Till Friday. And then, I promise you, we’ll call Diana and we’ll go back to London.”

  Oliver considered this, and finally, with some reluctance, agreed. “Not that I approve,” he added.

  Caroline smiled. “That’s nothing new. You’ve been radiating disapproval ever since we walked in through your door.”

  “With, you must admit, some justification.”

  “The only reason I went to Strathcorrie today was because of learning about your brother. I wouldn’t have gone if it hadn’t been for that. I felt so terrible, embarrassed, knowing we’d turned up at such a desperate time.”

  “It’s not desperate now. It’s all over.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Sell Cairney and go back to London.”

  “Isn’t that very sad?”

  “Sad, but not the end of the world. Cairney, the way I remember it, is inside my head, indestructible. It’s not so much the house as all the good things that happened in it. The underpinnings of a very happy life. I won’t lose any of that even if I live to be an old man with white hair and no teeth.”

  “Like Aphros,” said Caroline. “Aphros is like that for Jody and me. All the nice things that happen to me are nice because they remind me of Aphros. Sun and white houses and blue skies and winds blowing off the sea, and the smell of pine trees, and geraniums in pots. What was your brother like? Was he like you?”

  “He was nice, the nicest guy in the world and he wasn’t like me.”

  “How was he?”

  “Red-headed and hard working and up to his ears in Cairney. He was a good farmer. He was a good man.”

  “If Angus had been like that, things would have been so different.”

  “If Angus had been like my brother Charles you would never have come to Scotland to look for him, never come to Cairney, and then I should never have met you both.”

  “That surely can’t be such a good thing.”

  “But undoubtedly what Mrs Cooper would call an ‘experience.’”

  They laughed together. Their laughter was interrupted by a knock on the door, and when Caroline said “Come in,” the door opened and Jody put his head around its edge.

  “Jody.”

  He came slowly into the room. “Oliver, Mrs Cooper says to tell you supper’s ready.”

  “Good heavens, is it that time already?” Oliver looked at his watch. “All right. I’m on my way.”

  Jody came to his sister’s side. “Are you feeling better now?”

  “Yes, much better.??
?

  Oliver stood up, picked up the empty tray and started for the door. “How’s the jigsaw going?” he asked.

  “I’ve done a bit more, but not much.”

  “We’ll sit up all night, till it’s finished.” He said to Caroline, “You go to sleep now. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Good night,” said Jody.

  “Good night, Jody.”

  When they had gone, she turned off the bedside lamp. Starlight shone from beyond the open window and the half-drawn curtains. A curlew called and a stirring of wind moved in the tall pines. Caroline was already on the edge of sleep, but before she finally dropped off there were two important and puzzling thoughts which occurred to her.

  The first was that, after all this time, her affair with Drennan Colefield was finally over. She had talked about him, spoken his name, but the magic had gone. He was in the past now, finished and done with, and it was as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She was free again.

  The second thought was even more confusing. For, although she had told Oliver everything else, she had somehow not been able to bring herself to mention Hugh. She knew that there had to be a reason for this … there was a reason for everything … but she was asleep before there was time to start working it out.

  6

  The next morning it was April and it was spring. Just like that, spring had arrived. The wind dropped, the sun rose into a cloudless sky, the barometer soared and the temperature with it. The air was balmy, soft, smelling of newly-turned earth. The snow melted to nothing, revealing drifts of snowdrops and tiny, early crocuses, and under the beech trees carpets of shiny yellow aconites. Birds sang, doors stood open to the welcome warmth, washing lines billowed with curtains and blankets and other evidence of spring cleaning.

  At Rossie Hill, at about ten o’clock in the morning, the telephone began to ring. Duncan Fraser was out, but Liz was in the flower pantry, arranging a vase of pussy-willow sprigs and tall King Alfred daffodils. She put down her secateurs, dried her hands and went to answer the call.

  “Hallo?”