Snow in April

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I thought the house was deserted.”

  “Oliver’s out. He took … the others with him.” There was only the slightest hesitation but Liz latched on to it at once. She raised her eyebrows.

  “You mean your unexpected visitors? I’ve been hearing all about them.”

  “Och, they’re just a couple of youngsters. Oliver took them down to the loch, the wee boy wanted to see the boat.” She looked up at the kitchen clock. “But they’ll be back any time, they’re having an early dinner, for Oliver has to get back to Relkirk this afternoon to have another wee chat with the lawyer. Will you wait? Will you stay for lunch?”

  “I won’t stay for lunch, but I’ll wait a moment, and if they don’t come, I’ll go home. I only came to see how Oliver was getting on.”

  “He’s really been great,” Mrs Cooper told her. “In a way all this happening has been a good thing, taken his mind off his loss.”

  “All this?” Liz prompted gently.

  “Well, the young ones turning up like that, with their car broken down and nowhere to go.”

  “They came by car?”

  “Yes, drove from London seemingly. The car was in a terrible mess, right in the ditch, and on top of that frozen solid after a night in the open. But Cooper took it down to the garage, and they phoned early this morning and he went to pick it up and bring it back. It’s in the shed at the back of the house now, all ready for when they want to go away again.”

  “When are they going?” Liz kept her voice casual and very cool.

  “I couldn’t be sure. Nothing’s been said to me. There’s some talk about their brother staying in Strathcorrie, but he’s away just now, and I think they’re hoping to wait until he gets back.” She added, “But if you see Oliver, he’ll give you all the news himself. They’re just down at the loch. If you wanted, you could start off and meet them half way.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that,” said Liz.

  But she didn’t. She went back outside and settled herself on the stone bench outside the library window, put on her dark glasses, lit a cigarette and stretched out her body to the sun.

  It was very quiet, so that she heard their voices in the still morning air long before they actually appeared. The garden path curved away around the perimeter of a beech hedge, and as they came around this, into view, they seemed engrossed in conversation and did not immediately see Liz sitting there, waiting for them. The small boy led the way, and a pace or two behind him, Oliver, in an ancient tweed jacket and with red cotton handkerchief knotted at his throat, pulled the girl along by the hand, as though she had become tired from the walk and started to lag behind.

  He was talking. Liz heard the deep tones of his voice without being able to catch the words. Then the girl halted, and bent over, as if to ease a stone out of her shoe. A long curtain of pale hair fell across her face, and Oliver stopped, too, to wait for her, patient, his dark head bent down, her hand still in his. And Liz saw this and all at once she was afraid. She felt she was being shut out of something, as though the three of them were in some sort of a conspiracy against her. The stone was finally removed. Oliver turned to resume the climb, and then caught sight of the dark blue Triumph parked in front of the house. He saw Liz. She dropped her cigarette and stubbed it out under the heel of her shoe and stood up and went to meet them, but Oliver had let go of the girl’s hand and strode out ahead of the others, taking the steep grassy bank at a run, and meeting Liz at the top.

  “Liz.”

  “Hallo, Oliver.”

  * * *

  He thought that she looked better than ever, in tight buff pants and a fringed leather jacket. He took her hands and kissed her. He said, “Have you come to give me hell about last night?”

  “No,” said Liz frankly, and her eyes looked over his shoulder to where Caroline and Jody, more slowly, were coming over the grass. “I told you I was intrigued by your sudden rash of house guests. I’ve come to say how do you do.”

  “We went down to the loch.” He turned towards the others. “Caroline, this is Liz Fraser, she and her father are my nearest neighbours and she’s been in and out of Cairney since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. I showed you their house this morning, through the trees. Liz, this is Caroline Cliburn, and this is Jody.”

  “How do you do,” said Caroline. They shook hands. Liz took off her dark glasses, and it was with something of a shock that Caroline saw the expression in the other girl’s eyes.

  “Hallo,” said Liz. And then, “Hallo, Jody.”

  “How do you do,” said Jody.

  Oliver asked, “Have you been here long?”

  She turned to him, away from the other two. “Ten minutes, perhaps. No longer.”

  “You’ll stay for lunch?”

  “Mrs Cooper very sweetly asked me, but I’m expected home.”

  “Then come in and have a drink.”

  “No, I must get back. I only dropped by to say hallo.” She smiled at Caroline. “Mrs Cooper’s been telling me all about you. She says you’ve got a brother staying at Strathcorrie.”

  “He’s not been there long…”

  “Perhaps I’ve met him. What’s his name?”

  Without knowing why, Caroline hesitated, and Jody, catching the hesitation, answered the question for her.

  “He’s called Cliburn, like us,” he told Liz. “Angus Cliburn.”

  After lunch Oliver, swearing at the necessity, on such a beautiful afternoon, of having to change into a respectable suit and a collar and tie, get into his car, drive to the town and spend the rest of the day incarcerated in a stuffy lawyer’s office, duly departed.

  Caroline and Jody saw him away, waving him down the drive. When the car had gone out of sight, they still stood there, listening to the sound of his engine as it paused at the main road, and then swung out, changed up, and roared up and away over the hill.

  He was gone, and they found themselves slightly at a loss. Mrs Cooper, her dishes washed and wiped, had gone home to look after her own house and get a load of washing out on to the line before the warmth went out of the day. Jody kicked disconsolately at the gravel. Caroline watched him in sympathy, knowing just how he felt.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to go back to the loch?”

  “I don’t know.” He was any small boy, suddenly bereft of his best friend.

  “We could do another jigsaw.”

  “Not indoors.”

  “We could bring it out and do it in the sun.”

  “I don’t feel like doing jigsaws.”

  Defeated, Caroline went to sit on the bench where they had found Liz Fraser waiting for them this morning. She found that her thoughts instinctively shied from the memory of the encounter, and so, deliberately, she made herself go back, go over it, try to decide why she had found the other girl’s sudden appearance so disturbing.

  It was, after all, entirely natural. She was obviously a very old friend, a close neighbour, she appeared to have known Oliver all his life. Her father was buying Cairney. What could be more normal than she should drive over to make a friendly call and meet Oliver’s guests?

  But still, there was something there. A violent antipathy which Caroline had felt the moment Liz took off her dark glasses and looked her straight in the eye. Jealousy, perhaps? But, surely she had nothing to be jealous of. She was a hundred times more attractive than Caroline and Oliver was obviously devoted to her. Or perhaps she was simply possessive, as a sister might be? But this still did not account for the fact that standing, talking to her, Caroline had been left with the impression that, layer by layer, she was being slowly stripped of every garment she wore.

  Jody was squatting, scooping gravel into small mounds with hands that were grey with dust. He looked up.

  “Someone’s coming,” he said.

  They listened. He was right. A car had turned in at the foot of the avenue, was now approaching the hous
e.

  “Perhaps Oliver’s forgotten something.”

  But it wasn’t Oliver. It was the same dark blue Triumph that had stood outside the house this morning; its hood down, and Liz Fraser, with her glinting hair and her dark glasses, and a silk scarf around her neck, was at the wheel. Instinctively, both Caroline and Jody stood up, and the car rammed to a stop not two yards from where they waited, a cloud of dust flying from the back wheels.

  “Hallo again,” said Liz and switched off the engine.

  Jody said nothing. His face was blank. Caroline said “Hallo” and Liz opened the door and got out and slammed the door shut behind her. She took off her glasses and Caroline saw that her eyes were not smiling although her mouth was. “Oliver gone?”

  “Yes, about ten minutes ago.”

  Liz smiled at Jody and reached over into the back of her car. “I brought you a present. I thought you might be running out of things to do.” She produced a small-size putter and a golf ball. “There used to be a putting-green on that flat bit of lawn. I’m sure if you look you’ll find the hole and some of the markers. Do you like putting?”

  Jody’s face lit up. He adored presents. “Oh, thank you. I don’t know. I’ve never done it.”

  “It’s fun. Very tricky. Why don’t you go and see how good you are?”

  “Thank you,” he said again, and started off. Half-way down the bank he turned. “When I’ve learned how, will you come and have a game with me?”

  “Of course I will. We’ll have a little bet and see who wins the prize.”

  He went, running down the last of the slope on to the level lawn. Liz turned to Caroline and let her smile die. She said, “I really came to have a little talk with you. Shall we sit down? It’s so much more restful.”

  They sat, Caroline wary, Liz very much at ease, reaching for a cigarette, lighting it with a tiny gold lighter. She said, “I had a telephone call from my mother.”

  Caroline had nothing to say to this bit of gratuitous information. Liz went on, “You don’t know who I am, do you? I mean, apart from being Liz Fraser who lives at Rossie Hill?” Caroline shook her head. “But you know Elaine and Parker Haldane.” Caroline nodded. “My dear, don’t look so blank. Elaine’s my mother.”

  Looking back, Caroline could not imagine how she had been so dense. Elizabeth. Liz. Scotland. She remembered at that last dinner-party in London, Elaine talking about Elizabeth. Well, you know, ten years ago when Duncan and I were still together, we bought this place in Scotland. Duncan, Liz’s father, who was going to buy Cairney from Oliver. And the first thing Elizabeth did was to make friends with the two boys who lived on the neighbouring estate … the older brother … killed himself in a terrible car smash.

  And she remembered Jody telling her about Charles being killed, and how a memory had stirred in her subconscious, and yet been forgotten before it had come to conscious light.

  The pieces had been scattered, like the pieces of Jody’s undone jigsaw, but they had been there, right in front of her nose, only she had been too stupid, or perhaps too involved in her own problems, to fit them all together.

  She said, “I’ve always known you as Elizabeth.”

  “My mother and Parker call me that, but here I’ve always been Liz.”

  “I never realized. I simply never realized.”

  “Well, there it is. Coincidence and a small world and all that. And, as I say, my mother phoned this morning.”

  Her eyes were knowing. “What did she tell you?” asked Caroline.

  “Well, everything, I suppose. About you and … Jody, is it? … disappearing. Diana frantic with worry, knowing merely that you are in Scotland, nothing else. And a big wedding next Tuesday. You’re marrying Hugh Rashley.”

  “Yes,” said Caroline flatly, for there seemed nothing else to say.

  “You appear to have got yourself in something of a mess.”

  “Yes,” said Caroline. “I think I probably have.”

  “My mother said you’d come to Scotland to find Angus. Wasn’t that rather a wild-goose chase?”

  “It didn’t seem so at the time. It was just that Jody wanted to see Angus again. Because Diana and Shaun want to take Jody to Canada with them and Jody doesn’t want to go. And Hugh doesn’t want Jody living with us, so that only leaves Angus.”

  “I thought Angus was a hippie?”

  All Caroline’s instincts urged her to spring to her brother’s defence, but in truth it was hard to think of anything to say. She shrugged. “He is our brother.”

  “And living at Strathcorrie?”

  “Working there. In the hotel.”

  “But not at the moment?”

  “No, but he should be back by tomorrow.”

  “And you and Jody are going to wait here until he comes?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “You sound uncertain. Perhaps I can help you, make up your mind for you. Oliver’s going through a bad time. I don’t know whether you realized this. He was devoted to Charles, there were only the two of them. And now Charles is dead and Cairney has to go and this is the end of the line for Oliver. Don’t you think, under the circumstances, it would perhaps be … considerate if you and your brother were to go back to London? For Oliver’s sake. And Diana’s. And Hugh’s.”

  Caroline was not deceived. “Why do you want us out of the way?”

  Liz was unperturbed. “Perhaps because you’re an embarrassment to Oliver.”

  “Because of you?”

  Liz smiled. “Oh, my dear, we’ve known each other so long, we’re very close. Closer than you could imagine. That’s one of the reasons my father’s buying Cairney.”

  “You’re going to marry him?”

  “Of course.”

  “He never said.”

  “Why should he? Did you tell him that you were going to be married? Or perhaps it’s a secret? I notice you don’t wear an engagement ring.”

  “I … I left it in London. It’s too big for me and I’m always afraid of losing it.”

  “But he doesn’t know, does he?”

  “No.”

  “That’s funny, not telling Oliver. After all, according to my mother, it’s going to be a very large affair. I suppose a well-to-do stockbroker like Hugh Rashley would consider it part and parcel of his successful image. You are still going to marry him? But for some reason you don’t want Oliver to know?” And then when Caroline did not reply to any of these queries, she began to laugh. “My dear child, I do believe you’ve fallen in love with him. Well, I don’t blame you at all. I’m very sorry for you. But I’m on your side, so I’ll make a little bargain. You and Jody go back to London, and I shan’t breathe a word to Oliver about your wedding. He won’t know a thing about it until he sees the newspapers on Wednesday morning, which will doubtless carry the whole story, with a picture of the pair of you at the church door, looking like something that came off the top of a wedding cake. How’s that? No explanations, no excuses. Just a clean break. Back to your Hugh who obviously adores you, and leave hippie Angus to his own devices. Now, doesn’t that make sense?”

  Caroline said, helplessly, “There’s Jody…”

  “He’s a child. A little boy. He’ll adapt. He’ll go to Canada and love it, be captain of the ice hockey team in no time. Diana’s the best person to take care of him, you can surely see that? Someone like Angus could be nothing but the worst possible influence. Oh, Caroline, come off your cloud and face facts. Throw the whole thing over and go back to London.”

  From the lawn below them came a triumphant yell as Jody finally got the golf ball into the hole. He appeared up the bank, running, brandishing his new club. “I’ve got the hang of it. You have to hit it quite slowly and not too hard, and…” He stopped. Liz was on her feet, was pulling on her gloves. “Aren’t you going to play with me?”

  “Another time,” said Liz.

  “But you said.”

  “Another time.” She got into her car, neatly stowing her long legs. “Right now your
sister has something she wants to tell you.”

  * * *

  Oliver drove home through the blue dusk of the perfect day, his mood quite different from that of the day before. Now, he was relaxed, and for some reason, oddly content. Not exhausted by the long legal interview; clear-headed and much happier now that he had actually taken the final step of putting Cairney House up for sale. He had spoken, too, to the lawyer, about keeping the Loch Cottage, renovating it and converting it to a small holiday house, and the lawyer had raised no objections, provided Oliver could make arrangements with Duncan Fraser for an access road through what would become, in the course of time, Duncan’s land.

  Oliver did not imagine that Duncan would raise any objections to this. The thought of the house, raised square and sturdy again, filled him with satisfaction. He would take the garden down to the water’s edge, open up the old hearth, rebuild the chimney, put dormer windows in the loft. Planning, he began to whistle to himself. The leather wheel felt firm and pleasant beneath his hands and the car took the curves of the familiar road easily, sweetly, like a steeplechaser. As though, like Oliver, it knew it was coming home.

  He turned in at the gates and roared up the drive beneath the trees, coming around the sweep by the rhododendrons with a flourish on his horn to let Jody and Caroline know that he was safely back. He left the car by the front door and went indoors taking off his coat, and waiting for Jody’s footsteps.

  But the house was silent. He put his coat down across a chair and called, “Jody!” There was no reply. “Caroline!” Still nothing. He went down to the kitchen but it was dark and empty. Mrs Cooper had not yet come in to start cooking supper. Puzzled, he let the door swing shut and went along to the library. This, too, he found dark, the fire dying in the hearth. He switched on the light and went over to throw on some fresh logs. He straightened and saw the envelope on his desk, a square of white propped against the telephone. One of the best envelopes out of the top drawer in his desk, and on it was written his name.

  He opened it and saw, to his surprise, that his hands were shaking. He unfolded the single sheet and read Caroline’s letter.