Under Gemini

  He delved into some cupboard and produced them. The tea was kept in a very old tin with a picture of George V on the side. It was bent and most of the paint had gone. Flora said, “This looks as if it’s been around for some time.”

  “Yes, like everything in this house. Including me.”

  “Have you lived here all your life?”

  “Most of it. My father lived here for forty years, and it would be an understatement to say that he didn’t believe in change for its own sake. When I came back to take over from him it was like stepping back into the past. At first I thought I’d make all sorts of alterations and bring the whole place up-to-date, but before long the famous West Coast rot had set in, and it took me all my time and effort just to get the surgery built. Once that was up, I forgot about the house. Or perhaps I just forgot to notice it.”

  Flora felt relieved. At least he hadn’t gone out and chosen the dining room furniture for himself. The kettle boiled. She filled the teapot and put it on the table. She said, politely, “It’s a good solid house,” and it sounded like telling a proud mother that her baby looks healthy when you can’t think of another thing to say about the wretched infant.

  “Tuppy thinks it’s dreadful,” said Hugh placidly. “A mausoleum she calls it. And I’m prepared to believe her.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it.” She met his skeptical eye. “I mean,” she floundered on, “it has possibilities.” She sat down at the table and poured the tea. The atmosphere had become pleasantly domestic. Encouraged by this, she went on. “There’s no house that can’t be made very nice if you give it a little thought. All it needs is…” She searched for inspiration. “A coat of paint.”

  He looked amazed. “Is that all it needs?”

  “Well, it would be a start. A coat of paint can do wonders.”

  “I’ll have to try it.” He helped himself to milk and a generous amount of sugar, stirring the lot into a real workman’s brew. He drank it, apparently without scalding his throat, and at once poured a second cup. “A coat of paint.” He set down the teapot. “And perhaps the blinds pulled up to let some sunshine in. And the smell of new polish. And flowers. And books and music. And a fire burning in the grate when you come back from work at the end of a long winter’s day.”

  Without thinking, Flora said, “You don’t need a new housekeeper, you need a new wife,” and was instantly on the receiving end of a glance so sharp that she wished she had not spoken at all. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

  But he did not seem to be offended. He put more milk and sugar into his tea and stirred it. He said, “You know I’ve been married.” It was a statement of fact, not an accusation.

  “Yes. Tuppy told me.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  “That your wife was killed in a car accident.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.” She felt impelled to stand up for Tuppy. “She only told me because she’s so fond of you. She doesn’t like to think of you living on your own.”

  “After I got engaged to Diana I brought her back to Tarbole. The visit wasn’t what you’d call a success. Did Tuppy say anything about that?”

  “Not really.” Flora was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

  “I can tell by your face that she did. Tuppy didn’t take to Diana. Like everybody else, she thought I was making a terrible mistake.”

  “And was it a mistake?”

  “Yes. Right from the very beginning, but I was so blinded by my feelings I wouldn’t admit it even to myself. I met her in London. I was at St. Thomas’s working for my F.R.C.S. I had a friend there, John Rushmoore—I’d know him at Edinburgh University. We used to play rugger together. Then he got a job in the City, and I met up with him again when I went south. It was through him that I first met Diana. She and John belonged to a world that I had never known, and like any country bumpkin, I was bedazzled by it. And by her. When I wanted to marry her, everybody told me that I was mad. Her father had no opinion of me at all. From the beginning he had me pegged as a hairy-heeled Scotsman after his daughter’s money. My professor was equally unenthusiastic. I had another two years to go before I had a hope of getting my F.R.C.S., and he believed that I should put my career before my matrimonial aspirations. And of course my father agreed with him.

  “It may sound strange to you, but my father’s good opinion was the one that mattered most to me. I felt that if I had that, then the rest of them could go to hell. So I brought Diana home to meet him, and to show her off. It took some persuading to get her here. She’d only been to Scotland once before, on some grouse-shooting houseparty or other, and she didn’t relish the idea of Tarbole. But I finally talked her into it, naïvely, imagining that my father and the friends I’d known all my life would be as besotted by her as I was.

  “But it didn’t work out. In fact, it was a disaster. It rained the entire time, Diana hated Tarbole, she hated this house, and she hated the country. All right, she was spoiled. And like so many spoiled women, she could be wholly charming and engaging, but only with people who amused or stimulated her. There wasn’t anybody here who fitted that bill. She rendered my father speechless, and he wasn’t what you’d call a talkative man at the best of times. He was immensely courteous and she was a guest in his house, but by the end of the third day we’d all had enough. My father brought it all to a head. He topped himself up with whisky, took me into his surgery, and told me he thought I’d gone out of my mind. He told me a lot of other things as well, but most of them are unrepeatable. And then I lost my temper and I said a lot of unrepeatable things. And by the time that session was over, there was nothing for me to do but bundle Diana back into my car and drive back to London. We were married a week later. You could say because of parental opposition rather than in spite of it.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No. At first it was all right. We were infatuated with each other. I suppose, if you were romantically minded, you’d say we were much in love. But our two worlds were too far apart and we had nothing in common with which to build any sort of a bridge. When we first met, I think Diana imagined herself as the social wife of a brilliant surgeon, but instead she found herself married to a struggling student who spent most of his waking hours at the hospital. It wasn’t much of a marriage, but the fault was just as much mine as hers.”

  Flora wrapped her hands, for warmth, around her mug of tea. She said, “Perhaps if circumstances had been different…”

  “But they weren’t different. We had to make the best of what we had.”

  “When was she killed?”

  “Nearly two years after we married. By then we were hardly ever together, and I thought nothing of it when Diana told me that she was going away for the weekend to stay with an old schoolfriend who lived in Wales. But when she was killed, she was in John Rushmoore’s car, and he was driving. And they weren’t going to Wales, they were going to Yorkshire.”

  Flora stared at him. “You don’t mean … your friend?”

  “Yes. My friend. They’d been having an affair for months and I’d never even suspected. Afterward, when it was all over, it all came out. Everyone had known, it seemed, but no one had had the heart to enlighten me. It’s a shattering thing to lose your wife and your friend in one fell swoop. It’s even more shattering when you lose your pride as well.”

  “Was John Rushmoore killed too?”

  “No.” Hugh was casual. “He’s still around.”

  “Is that why you threw over your F.R.C.S. and came back to Tarbole?”

  “I came because my father was ill.”

  “You never thought of going back to London?”

  “No.”

  “Couldn’t you still become a surgeon?”

  “No. It’s too late. I belong here now. Perhaps this is where I’ve always belonged. I’m not sure if I could have lived my life in a city, away from clean air and the smell of the sea.”

  “You’re just like…” Flora began, and then stopped herself
just in time. She had been about to say You’re just like my father. Listening to Hugh, she had forgotten that she was meant to be Rose. Now she found herself consumed by an entirely natural compulsion to exchange confidence for confidence, memory for memory. Hugh had opened a door, which had previously been shut and barred in her face, and she wanted very much to go through it.

  But she couldn’t because, as Rose, she had nothing to offer him in return. As Rose, she could share no memories, offer no comfort. The frustration of this was suddenly more than she could bear, and for a moment she actually considered spilling out the truth. In his present mood, she knew that he would understand. She had given her promise to Antony, but Hugh was, after all, a doctor. Wasn’t telling a doctor a secret rather like confessing to a priest? Did it really count?

  From the very beginning, all Flora’s finer instincts had reacted against the lie that she and Antony had embarked upon, simply because it was bound to affect and involve other and innocent people. But now it seemed that the lie had turned, and Flora herself was caught up in its tangled coils—bound hand and foot, shackled by it, and unable to move.

  Hugh waited for her to finish her sentence. When she did not, he prompted her. “Who am I like?”

  “Oh…” I promise, she had said to Antony, only yesterday on the beach. “… Nobody. Just someone I once knew who felt the way you do.”

  The moment was over. The temptation past. She was still Rose, and she did not know whether she was glad or sorry. The kitchen was warm and quiet. The only sounds came from outside. A lorry changed gears, grinding up the hill past the gate. A dog barked; a woman, climbing up from the ships with her laden basket, called across the road to her friend. The sky was filled with the scream of gulls.

  The peace was terminated abruptly by the arrival of Jason. The front door opened and slammed shut with a force that shook the house. It took them by surprise, and Flora jumped and looked at Hugh and saw her own blank expression mirrored on his face. They had forgotten about Jason. Jason’s high voice pierced the air.

  “Rose!”

  “She’s here!” Hugh called back. “In the kitchen.”

  Footsteps raced down the passage, the door was flung wide, and Jason burst in.

  “Hello. Mr. Thomson brought me in his car and there’s a great big boat in the harbor and he says it’s come from Germany. Hello, Hugh.”

  “Hello, old boy.”

  “Hello, Rose.” He came around to her side of the table and put his arms around her neck to give her an absent-minded kiss. “Hugh, I’ve drawn a special picture for Tuppy. I did it this afternoon.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  Jason struggled with the buckle of his satchel and hauled out the drawing. “Oh, bother, it’s all crumpled.”

  “That’s all right,” said Hugh. “Bring it here.”

  Jason did so, leaning against Hugh’s knee. Hugh took the drawing and unfolded it carefully, smoothing out the creases on the top of the kitchen table. Once before, Flora had noticed his hands. Now, for some reason watching them deal so deftly with Jason’s smudged and garish painting did something peculiar to the pit of her stomach. She heard him say, “That’s a fine picture. What is it?”

  “Oh, Hugh, you are stupid.”

  “Elucidate.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “Well, look. It’s an airplane and a man in a parachute. And then there’s this man, and he’s landed already, and he’s waiting for the other man, and he’s sitting under a tree.”

  “I see. It’s very good. Tuppy will like it. No, don’t fold it again. Leave it flat. Rose will carry it for you and then it won’t get creased again. Won’t you, Rose?”

  She was taken unawares. “What?” She looked up from the table and met the startling blue of his eyes.

  “I said you’d look after the picture.”

  “Yes, of course I will.”

  “Are you having tea?” asked Jason. “Is there anything to eat?” He looked about him hopefully.

  Flora remembered the ditched fruitcake. “I don’t know. We just had a cup of tea.”

  Hugh said, “If you look in that red tin on the dresser there might be a biscuit.”

  Jason fetched the tin, put it on the table and wrestled it open. He produced from it a large chocolate biscuit, wrapped in silver paper.

  “Can I have this?”

  “If you want to risk it. I’ve no idea how long it’s been there.”

  Jason removed the paper and took an experimental mouthful. “It’s all right. A bit soggy, but it’s all right.” Munching, he stared from High’s face to Flora’s. “Why didn’t you come for me, Rose?”

  “I was making Hugh a cup of tea. You didn’t mind, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t mind.” He came to lean against her. She put her arm around him and pressed her chin against the top of his head. “I played with the train set,” he told her in a voice of the deepest satisfaction. Flora began to laugh. She glanced across at Hugh, expecting to have him share her amusement, but he did not seem to have heard Jason. His expression was abstracted and withdrawn, and he was watching the two of them with the total absorption of a man on the verge of making some marvelous discovery.

  * * *

  Jason was in bed, Tuppy safely tucked away upstairs, and Rose had departed—looking very charming—to be given dinner by Brian Stoddart. Isobel sat alone by the fire, doing her knitting and listening to Mozart. To be on her own was for her a rare pleasure; to listen to Mozart instead of the nine o’clock news on television, an even rarer one. It caused Isobel a slight pang of guilt, because Tuppy always listened to the nine o’clock news, and the reason Isobel didn’t have to was because Tuppy was ill. But the guilt was not enough to be troublesome. And she had had a busy day. After all that telephoning, she felt exhausted. Squelching her conscience, Isobel knitted on, reveling in the novelty of self-indulgence.

  The telephone rang. She sighed, glanced at the clock, drove her needles through the ball of wool, and went out into the hall to answer it. It was Hugh Kyle. “Yes, Hugh.”

  “Isobel, I’m sorry to disturb you, but is Rose there?”

  “No, I’m sorry, she’s not.”

  “Oh. Well, never mind.”

  “Can I give her a message?”

  “It’s just that … she was here this afternoon delivering a splendid pie Mrs. Watty made, and she’s left her gloves behind. At least, I think they must be hers. And I didn’t want her to think she’d lost them.”

  “I’ll tell her. I won’t see her again this evening, but I’ll tell her in the morning.”

  “Has she gone out?”

  “Yes.” Isobel smiled, because it was so pleasant for Rose, bereft of Antony’s company, to be having some fun. “Brian Stoddart’s taken her out for dinner.”

  There was a long silence, and then Hugh said, faintly, “What?”

  “Brian Stoddart’s taken her out for dinner. Anna’s away so they’re keeping each other company.”

  “Where have they gone?”

  “I think to Lochgarry. Brian said something about the Fishers’ Arms. He had a drink here before they went.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ll tell Rose about the gloves.”

  “What?” He sounded as though he had forgotten about the gloves. “Oh, yes. Any time. It doesn’t matter. Goodnight, Isobel.”

  Even for Hugh, that was fairly abrupt. “Goodnight,” said Isobel. She put down the receiver and stood for a moment, wondering if something was wrong. But nothing occurred to her. Just her imagination. She turned off the light and went back to the music.

  * * *

  Lochgarry lay some fifteen miles to the south of Fernrigg, at the head of a sea loch and on the junction of the main roads from Fort William, from Tarbole, and from Morven and Ardnamuchan to the south. Long ago, it had been simply a small community of fisherfolk, with a modest inn to serve the needs of infrequent travelers. But then the railways had com
e, bringing in their wake wealthy sportsmen from England, and after that nothing was the same again. The Lochgarry Castle Hotel was built to accommodate not only the sportsmen, but their retinues of families, friends, and servants, and in August and September the surrounding hills echoed to the crack of guns.

  After the Second World War, things changed again. Industry arrived, in the shape of a huge sawmill and lumberyards. More houses went up, as did a new school to take the place of the old single-room schoolhouse, and a little cottage hospital. The roads were widened and improved, and summer traffic swelled over the years to a flood. The seafields which sloped down to the water were transformed into caravan sites, and an area of rough pasture banked with clumps of whin and gorse had been landscaped into a nine-hole golf course.

  The Fishers’ Arms, the little inn which had stood facing out over the loch for as long as anybody could remember, bore witness to all that change. Over the years it had been many times enlarged, improved with bow windows, decorated with porches, painted white and trellised with creepers. Inside, up crooked stairs and down sloping passages, were not only bedrooms, but bathrooms as well. One owner built a bar. Another built a restaurant. A third bulldozed the garden into a car park. By the time Flora set eyes on it, its original modest form was lost forever.

  The car park, when they reached it, seemed full. Brian parked his car and they stepped out into the blowy dusk. The air smelt of seaweed, and random lights of cottages were reflected in the dark waters of the loch. From inside the inn came sounds of clashing crockery, the smell of good food cooking.

  “It seems to be very popular,” Flora observed.

  “It is. But don’t worry, I booked a table.” He tucked his hand beneath her arm, and they crossed the car park and went up the steps and through the main door. Inside were bright lights and tartan carpeting and plastic flower arrangements. A notice pointed up the stairs to the ladies’, and Flora detached herself gently from Brian, and said that she would go upstairs and shed her coat.

  “You do that. You’ll find me in the bar.”

  A white-coated waiter appeared. “Good evening, Mr. Stoddart. It’s a long time since we’ve seen you.”