Snow in April

  “It wasn’t your fault. It could have happened to anybody. By the time the garage have finished with it, it’ll probably be better than ever.” He looked at his watch. “We must move, I’ve got to get changed and into Relkirk by twelve-thirty.”

  * * *

  They returned to the house in silence, parked at the door and went indoors. At the foot of the stairs Oliver stopped and looked at Caroline.

  “You’ll be all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll see you later then.”

  Caroline watched him go upstairs, his long legs taking the stairs two at a time. Then she shed herself of the oilskin and the large boots and went in search of Jody. The kitchen was empty, but she found Mrs Cooper vacuuming the enormous turkey-carpeted wastes of a little-used dining-room. She switched off the machine when Caroline appeared at the door.

  “Did you get your motor sorted?” she asked.

  “Yes. Your husband’s very kindly taken it to the garage. Have you seen Jody?”

  “Yes, he’s up and about, the dear wee soul. Came downstairs, and had his breakfast with me in the kitchen, right as rain. Two boiled eggs he had and toast and honey and a glass of milk. Then I showed him the boys’ old nursery and he’s there now, up to high doh with all the bricks and cars and goodness knows what.”

  “Where is the nursery?”

  “Come away and I’ll show you.”

  She abandoned her cleaning and led the way up a small back staircase and through a door into a white-painted, blue-carpeted passage. “This was the nursery wing in the old days, the children had it all to themselves. It’s not used now, of course, hasn’t been for years, but I lit a wee fire, so it’s nice and warm.” She opened a door and stood aside for Caroline to go in. It was a big room, with a bay window looking out over the garden. A fire burned behind a tall fender, there were old armchairs and a sagging couch, bookshelves, an ancient tail-less rocking horse, and on the floor, in the middle of the threadbare carpet, Jody, surrounded by a fortification of wooden bricks which spread to the corners of the room, all set about with model cars, toy soldiers, cowboys, knights-in-armour and farmyard animals. He looked up as she came in, his concentration so intent that he didn’t even look embarrassed at being caught in such a babyish occupation.

  “Heavens,” said Caroline. “How long has it taken you to build this lot?”

  “Since breakfast. Don’t knock that tower over.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” She stepped carefully over it and made for the fireplace where she stood, leaning against the fender.

  Mrs Cooper was full of admiration. “I’ve never seen anything so neat! And all the wee roads! You must have used up every brick in the place.”

  “I have, just about.” Jody smiled at her. They were obviously already the best of friends.

  “Well, I’ll leave you then. And lunch is at half past twelve. Apple pie I’ve made and there’s a wee bit of cream. Do you like apple pie, pet?”

  “Yes, I love it.”

  “That’s good.” She went away. They heard her humming to herself. “Isn’t she nice?” said Jody, aligning two tall bricks to make a ceremonial gateway into his fort.

  “Yes, isn’t she? Did you sleep all right?”

  “Yes, for hours. It’s a super house.” He piled on another couple of bricks to make a really high gateway.

  “The car’s gone to the garage. Mr Cooper took it. It didn’t have any anti-freeze.”

  “Silly old Caleb,” said Jody. He chose an arched brick and placed it carefully, crowning his masterpiece. He put his cheek to the carpet, looking through the archway, thinking himself tiny, pretending that he would be able to ride through it on a great white charger, with the plume on his helmet fluttering in the breeze and his quartered banner held high.

  “Jody, last night, when you were talking in your bath, you didn’t say anything about Angus, did you? To Oliver Cairney?”

  “No. Just that we were going to find him.”

  “Or about Diana? Or Hugh?”

  “He never asked.”

  “Don’t say anything.”

  Jody looked up. “How much longer are we going to stay here?”

  “Oh, no time. We’ll find Angus this afternoon, we’ll go to Strathcorrie when the roads have been cleared.”

  Jody made no comment on this. She watched him take a little horse from an open box, then search for the knight that would fit into its saddle. He selected one, fitted the two together, held them off for a moment to gauge the effect. He placed the rider, with the utmost precision, beneath his archway.

  He said, “Mrs Cooper told me something.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “This isn’t his house.”

  “What do you mean, it isn’t his house? It has to be his house.”

  “It belonged to his brother. Oliver lives in London, but his brother used to live here. He used to farm. That’s why there are dogs and tractors and things about the place.”

  “What happened to his brother?”

  “He was killed,” said Jody. “In a car crash. Last week.”

  Killed in a car crash. Something, some memory, stirred in the back of Caroline’s subconscious, but was almost at once lost in horror, as the implication of Jody’s cool statement made itself felt. She found that she had put a hand over her mouth as though to choke back the world. Killed.

  “That’s why Oliver’s here.” Jody’s voice was off-hand, a sure sign that he was distressed. “For the funeral and everything. To tie things up, Mrs Cooper says. He’s going to sell this house and the farm and everything and never come back.” He stood up carefully, trod his way over to Caroline’s side, and stood close, and she knew that for all his apparent coolness, he was, all at once, in need of comfort.

  She put her arm around him. She said, “And in the middle of it all, we had to turn up. Poor man.”

  “Mrs Cooper says it was a good thing. She says it keeps his mind off his sorrow.” He looked up at her. “When will we get to Angus?”

  “Today,” Caroline promised him without any hesitation. “Today.”

  Besides the apple pie and cream, there was mince for lunch, baked potatoes and mashed swedes. “Chappit neeps” Mrs Cooper called them, ladling them on to Jody’s plate. Caroline, who had thought she was hungry, discovered that she was not, but Jody ate his way through the lot and then attacked with relish a bar of home-made “taiblet.”

  “And now, what are you ones going to do with yourselves for the rest of the day? Mr Cairney won’t be back till tea-time.”

  “Can I go on playing in the nursery?” Jody wanted to know.

  “Of course, pet.” Mrs Cooper looked at Caroline.

  Caroline said, “I shall go for a walk.”

  Mrs Cooper seemed surprised. “Have you not had enough fresh air for one day?”

  “I like being out. And it’s so pretty with the snow.”

  “It’s clouding over now, though, it won’t be such a fine afternoon.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Jody was torn. “Do you mind if I don’t come with you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I rather thought I might build a grand-stand. You know, to watch the jousting.”

  “You do that.”

  Taken up with his plans, Jody excused himself and disappeared upstairs to put them into action. Caroline offered to help Mrs Cooper with the dishes but was told no, away out with you, before the rain comes on. So she went out of the kitchen and across the hall, put on the oilskin and the rubber boots she had worn that morning, tied a scarf around her head and let herself out of the house.

  Mrs Cooper had been right about the day. Clouds had rolled in from the west, there was a mildness in the air, the sun had disappeared. She drove her hands deep into the pockets of the coat and set off, across the lawn, down the avenue, and through the gates on to the road. She turned left, in the direction of Strathcorrie, and started to walk.

  You sit tight and wait f
or me at Cairney, Oliver had said, and if she wasn’t there by the time he returned he would probably be furious, but taking the long view, Caroline could not see that this would matter very much. After today, they would probably never see him again. She would write, of course, to thank him for his kindness. But she would never see him again.

  And, somehow, it was important that when she and Angus met up once more, after all these years, they did not do so beneath the eyes of some critical stranger. The worst thing about Angus was that you could never depend on him. He had always been the most unpredictable person in the world, vague, elusive and utterly maddening. From the very beginning she had had reservations about this wild scheme of coming to Scotland to find him, but somehow Jody’s enthusiasm had been infectious. He was so sure that Angus would be waiting for them, delighted to see them, anxious to help, that, from the safe distance of London, he had managed to convince Caroline as well.

  But now, in the chill light of a Scottish afternoon, her doubts returned. Angus would of course be at the Strathcorrie Hotel because that was where he was working, but the fact that he cleaned shoes and carried logs was no insurance that he would not have long hair, a beard, bare feet and no intention whatsoever of doing anything to help his brother and sister. She imagined Oliver Cairney’s reaction to such an attitude and knew that she could not have borne him to be present to witness the great reunion.

  Besides, there was the new knowledge of his brother’s recent death, and a sensation of the most acute embarrassment that they had encroached on Oliver’s kindness and taken advantage of his unquestioning hospitality at such a totally inopportune time. There was no doubt that the sooner he was shed of them the better. There was no doubt that coming to find Angus now, on her own, was the only possible course to take.

  Trudging down the long, snow-packed road, she filled the time convincing herself that this was really so.

  * * *

  She had been walking for over an hour, without any idea of how many miles she had covered, when a lorry overtook her, slowly grinding up the slope behind her. It was the County snow-plough, its huge steel plough cutting through the snow like the bows of a ship through water, sending out a spuming wake of slush on either side of the road.

  Caroline got out of the way, clambering up on to the top of the wall, but the snow-plough stopped, and the man inside opened the door and called down to her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Strathcorrie.”

  “That’s another six miles. Do you want a ride?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Come away then.” She scrambled down off the wall, and he put down a horny hand and helped her up, moving across to make space for her. His mate, a much older man driving the lorry, said dourly, “I hope you’re no’ in a hurry. The snow’s lying deep on the brow of the hill.”

  “I’m in no hurry. Just so that I don’t have to walk.”

  “Aye, it’s durrty weather.”

  He crashed the heavy gears, threw off the handbrake, and they moved on, but it was, in truth, a slow progress. At intervals the two men got down and did a bit of strenuous shoveling, clearing the grit piles that had been left, strategically, at the sides of the road. Damp oozed its way through the windows of the cab, and Caroline’s feet, in her ill-fitting boots, became like two lumps of ice.

  But at last they crested the final hill and the kindly roadman said, “There’s Strathcorrie now,” and she saw the white and grey countryside drop before them, into a deep glen, and a long meandering loch, quite still, and steel-grey with reflected sky.

  On the far side of the water the hills climbed again, patterned black with stands of fir and pine, and beyond their gentle summits could be seen other peaks, a range of distant, northern mountains. And directly below, clustered around the narrow end of the loch, lay the village. She saw the church and little streets of grey houses, and there was a small boat yard, with jetties and moorings and small craft pulled up on the shingle for the winter.

  “What a pretty place!” said Caroline.

  “Aye,” said the roadman. “And they get a gey lot of visitors in the summer months. Sailing boats for hire, bed and breakfast, caravans…”

  The road ran downhill. The snow here, for some reason, lay not so thick and they were making better time. “Where do you want us to leave you?” the driver asked.

  “The hotel. The Strathcorrie Hotel. Do you know where that is?”

  “Oh, aye, I ken it fine.”

  In the village, the grey streets were wet, snow melting in the gutters, dropping, with soft plopping sounds, from sloping eaves. The snow-plough drove down the main street, passed under an ornamental Gothic archway, built to commemorate some long-forgotten Victorian occasion, and came to a halt before a long whitewashed building, fronted by a cobbled pavement and with a sign swinging over the door.

  Strathcorrie Hotel. Visitors Welcome.

  There was no sign of life. “Is it open?” Caroline asked doubtfully.

  “Aye, it’s open right enough. It’s just no’ very busy.”

  She thanked them for their kindness and climbed down from the snow-plough. As it moved away, she crossed the road, and the cobbled pavement, and went in through the revolving door. Inside it smelled of stale cigarette smoke and boiled cabbage. There was a sad picture of a roe deer on a wet hill, and a desk with a notice, Reception, but no one to do any receiving. There was, however, a bell, which Caroline rang. In a moment a woman appeared from an office. She wore a black dress and spectacles trimmed with diamanté, and did not look too pleased at being interrupted in the middle of the afternoon, especially by a girl in jeans and an oilskin with a red cotton handkerchief tied around her head.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m so sorry to bother you, but I wondered if I could speak to Angus Cliburn.”

  “Oh,” said the woman immediately. “Angus isn’t here.” She looked quite pleased to be able to impart this information.

  Caroline simply stared at her. Overhead a clock ticked sonorously. Somewhere, in the back regions of the hotel, a man started to sing. The woman readjusted her spectacles.

  “He was here, of course,” she enlarged, as though conceding a point to Caroline. She hesitated and then said, “Did you by any chance send him a telegram? There is a telegram for him, but of course he’d gone by the time it arrived.” She opened a drawer and took out the orange envelope. “I had to open it, you see, and I’d have let you know he wasn’t here, only there wasn’t any address.”

  “No, of course…”

  “He was here, mind you. He worked here for a month or more. Helping out. We were a little short-staffed, you see.”

  “But where is he now?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t say. He went with an American lady, driving her car for her. She was staying here, and hadn’t anyone to drive her, so as we had a replacement for Angus by then, we let him go. A chauffeur,” she added as though Caroline would never have heard of the word.

  “But when are they coming back?”

  “Oh, in a day or so. The end of the week Mrs Mcdonald said.”

  “Mrs Mcdonald?”

  “Yes, the American lady. Her husband’s ancestors came from this part of Scotland. That’s why she was so keen to go sight-seeing, hired the car and got Angus to drive her.”

  Back at the end of the week. That meant Friday, or Saturday. But Caroline and Jody had to be back in London by Friday. She couldn’t wait until the week-end. She was getting married on Tuesday. On Tuesday she was getting married to Hugh, and she had to be there, because there was a wedding rehearsal on Monday, and Diana would be frantic, and all the presents.

  Her thoughts galloped uselessly, to and fro, like a distracted runaway horse. She pulled herself up and told herself that she must be practical. And then realized that she could not think of one practical thing to say or to do. I am at the end of my tether. This was how it felt. Now, when people said I am at the end of my tether, she, Caroline, would understand.

  Th
e woman behind the desk was becoming a little impatient with all this waiting about. “Did you particularly want to see Angus?”

  “Yes. I’m his sister. It’s rather important.”

  “Where did you come from today?”

  Without thought Caroline told her. “From Cairney.”

  “But that’s eight miles. And the road’s blocked.”

  “I walked a bit, and then I got a lift with the snow-plough.”

  They would have to wait for Angus. Perhaps they could stay here, at the hotel. She wished she had brought Jody with her.

  “Would you have two rooms vacant that we could have?”

  “We?”

  “I have another brother. He’s not with me just now.”

  The woman looked doubtful, but she said “Just a moment” and went back to her office to consult some book. Caroline leaned against the counter and decided that it was no good getting into a panic, it only made you feel ill. It made you feel sick.

  And then she knew it was back again, the old nausea, the knife-like pain in her stomach. It had taken her completely by surprise, like some horrible monster waiting around the corner to pounce. She tried to ignore it, but it was not to be ignored. It grew, with frightening speed, like a huge balloon being pumped up with air. Enormous, and so intensely agonizing that it left no room in her consciousness for anything else. She was made of pain, pain stretched to the most distant horizon, she closed her eyes and there came a sound like the screaming of a distant alarm bell.

  And then, when she thought she could bear it no longer, it began to die away, slipping down and off her, like some discarded garment. After a little, she opened her eyes, and found herself looking straight into the horrified face of the receptionist. She wondered how long she had been standing there.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She tried to smile. Her face was wet with sweat. “Indigestion, I think. I’ve had it before. And then the walk…”

  “I’ll get you a glass of water. You’d better sit down.”

  “I’m all right.”

  But something was wrong with the woman’s face; in a strange blur it was approaching and receding. She was speaking, Caroline could see her mouth open and shut, but she made no sound. Caroline put out a hand and took hold of the edge of the counter, but it did no good, and the last thing she remembered was the brightly patterned carpet swinging up to hit her with a resounding clout on the side of the head.