Winter Solstice

  “They were halcyon days. I suppose, the peak of my fairly modest career. Two of the choristers were professional concert singers, there was enthusiasm from the public, and we were able to enlarge our repertoire and perform, on special occasions, some ambitious chorales. Palestrina’s Salvete Flares Martyrum, Schubert’s setting of the Twenty-Third Psalm, Fame’s Requiem. Glorious stuff.

  “I met the Bellamys soon after my arrival at Saint Biddulph’s. They lived in some style in a house in Elm Park Gardens, and from the first were enormously hospitable and kind to me. When George Bellamy became ill, I used to go to their house to keep him company, play backgammon with him. When he died, I arranged the music for his considerably important funeral.

  “After the funeral, I thought that Gloria would no longer want me coming and going. That the reason for my visits was now over. But she continued to invite me to various small social affairs. A drinks party or a dinner or a Sunday luncheon. Sometimes we went to the cinema together, or spent a day at Kew. I thought little of it, but much enjoyed her company. And then, one day, in a quite matter-of-fact fashion, she said that she thought it would be a good idea if we married. She explained that she did not enjoy living without a man, and she felt that I, in my advancing years, would be glad of a wife to take care of me. It all sounds, I know, a little cold-blooded, but the truth is that I was extremely fond of her, and she, I think, of me. We were neither of us in our first flush of youth, and so old enough to make a success of what others saw simply as a marriage of convenience.

  “She was a wonderful wife. Warm, generous, and kindhearted. I had never, since I was a boy coming to Corrydale, known such material comforts, such ease of living. She and George had sons, Giles and Crawford, but now they were adult, had fled the nest, and set up establishments of their own. And Gloria was still a comparatively young woman and brimming with physical vitality. When she told me she was pregnant, I was quite ridiculously incredulous. I had never, in all my life, imagined that I would become a father. And when Francesca was born, that tiny child, I was filled with a wonder which I don’t suppose I shall ever experience again. It was as though a miracle had occurred. And she never stopped being a miracle.

  “Sometimes, as she grew older, and was running about and talking nineteen-to-the-dozen, and generally making the usual din that all children make, I would watch her, and still find it unbelievable that she was actually mine, that I had helped to create this beguiling, beautiful, miniature human being.

  “Then Gloria was left this house in the country, in Hampshire, and we moved from London and started our new life in Dibton. I have to admit that I missed Saint Biddulph’s, but music was still part of my life. I taught a little, and from time to time played the organ for Morning Service in the village church.”

  Here, Oscar paused, to reach for his glass and to take another sip of the Laphroaig. A glowing lump of peat slipped, with a whisper, into the bed of the fire. The clock gently ticked on.

  Peter spoke.

  “Your friend. Elfrida. Have you known her for always?”

  “No. We didn’t meet until she came to live in our village. She was alone, and Gloria made friends with her, and generally took Elfrida under her wing. She was amusing, full of life, and we all enjoyed her company. Francesca was forever bicycling off to visit her in her little cottage. She made Francesca laugh. She was in Cornwall, staying with a cousin, at the time of the accident. She returned after the funeral, with no idea at all of what had happened. When Hector suggested I leave Hampshire and return to Creagan, I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. The journey seemed too arduous, and I dreaded being alone. So I asked Elfrida to come with me. It is a measure of her generous heart that she agreed. She is company for me, and in the blackest moments has always been able to make me smile. When I first met Elfrida, I remember she asked me if I was religious. I told her that it is hard not to believe when you have been steeped in the liturgies and traditions of the Anglican Church for most of your life. And that I felt I needed some being to thank.

  “Because I was fortunate. I was content. The marriage was working well, and because of Francesca, I could have no regrets. But Gloria was a very strong, forceful character. And her considerable wealth was her own. She had to be handled, at times, with enormous tact. She loved company, people, parties, and sometimes she drank too much. I don’t mean that she was an alcoholic … well, not exactly … simply a serious social drinker. Often, after an evening out, I would drive us home, in her car, and she resented that, and would be sullen-faced the next morning. I feel disloyal to her even talking about this. But I knew her weakness, just as I knew her many strengths.

  “The day of the bonfire and the Guy Fawkes party, she said she was taking Francesca, and it occurred to me that I should go, too. But I had a man coming to see me about building a new fence for the paddock. It was a job I had been wanting to see done and finished, and I didn’t feel inclined to put him off. Besides, it was simply a children’s party. A big tea, and fireworks. They would be home by seven at the latest.

  “And, of course, it was a children’s party. But there were adults there, too, most of them Gloria’s friends. And after the fireworks were over, and the children were still running about in the dark, in the garden, waving sparklers and working off their excitement, the adults went indoors for a drink.

  “I don’t know how much she had. There wasn’t, thank God, an autopsy. Driving conditions were appalling, sudden heavy rain, the roads running with water. As well, there had been some repair on the roundabout and lights had been left flashing to warn of this. Perhaps they confused her. We’ll never know. The lorry driver said that her car had driven out, at some speed, straight into his path, as he swung around from the right. It was, of course, his right-of-way. There was not a mortal thing he could do. A split second. And Gloria’s car was destroyed, unrecognizable, and Gloria and Francesca were both dead.

  “The news was broken to me by the police. A nice young sergeant. Poor boy. I cannot describe my reaction, because I felt nothing. Numb. Empty. Devoid of any emotion. And then, gradually, the void filled with a bitter rage and resentment, against whoever, or whatever, had allowed this thing to happen to me. The world, I know, is filled with horror, and one becomes hardened. Horrified, but hardened. Watching television images of destroyed villages, starving children, monumental natural disasters. But this was me. This was my life, my being. My wife. My child! If a God was there… and I had never been totally certain that he was … I didn’t want to have any part of him.

  “Our cleric in Dibton called to comfort. He told me that God sends people only what they are strong enough to bear. And I rounded on him, and said that I wished I were as weak as water, and still had my child. And then I sent him away. We never got around to the guilt. I knew Gloria’s weakness. I should have been with them. I should have been behind the wheel of the car. If only. If only is my nightmare.”

  “If only is like hindsight. A useless exercise. The accident seemed to me to have been one composed of several tragic circumstances. Who knows? Perhaps you would have died, too, Oscar, and then an even larger hole would have been left in the lives of those who knew and loved you all…. As for God, I frankly admit that I find it easier to live with the age-old questions about suffering than with many of the easy or pious explanations offered from time to time. Some of which seem to verge on blasphemy. I hope so much that no one has sought to try and comfort you by saying that God must have needed Francesca more than you. I would find it impossible to worship a God who deliberately stole my child from me. Such a God would be a moral monster.”

  Oscar was astounded.

  “Is that,” he asked at last, “what you really believe?”

  Peter nodded.

  “It is what I truly believe. Thirty years in the ministry has taught me that the one thing we should never say when a young person dies is “It is the will of God.” We simply don’t know enough to say that. I am in fact convinced that when Francesca died in that terrible acci
dent, God’s was the first heart to break.”

  “I want to move on, to go on living, to be able to accept; to-be able to give again. I don’t like taking all the time. I’ve never been that sort of person.”

  “Oh, Oscar. It will be all right. Because of your profession, the Church has been so much part of your life for so many years that you will be as familiar as I am with the great biblical promises about life and death. The problem is that traumatic grief can often render them unreal. For a while, what you are probably going to need most is not people who will quote the Bible to you, but close friends who will continue to hold your hand, and lend you a listening ear when you want to speak about Francesca.”

  Oscar thought about Elfrida, and Peter paused for a moment, as though to give him time to argue this new conception. But Oscar did not say anything.

  “Life is sweet,” Peter went on.

  “Beyond the pain, life continues to be sweet. The basics are still there. Beauty, food, and friendship, reservoirs of love and understanding. Later, possibly not yet, you are going to need others who will encourage you to make new beginnings. Welcome them. They will help you move on, to cherish happy memories and confront the painful ones with more than bitterness and anger.”

  Oscar remembered the dark night, and the image of Francesca, and how, for the first time, it had not reduced him to the painful tears of loss, but had filled his being with a peaceful comfort. Perhaps that had been the start of his recovery. Perhaps this conversation, this interview, whatever one called it, was the continuance.

  He did not know. He only knew that he felt better, stronger, not so useless. Perhaps, after all, he hadn’t done so badly.

  He said, “Thank you.”

  “Oh, my friend, I wish I could give you so much more.”

  “No. Don’t wish that. You have given me enough.”

  LUCY

  Lucy had flown only twice in her life. Once was to France, where she had been invited for a summer holiday with the family of a schoolfriend. The second trip was to the Channel Islands with her mother and her grandmother. That was during Easter, and they had stayed in the sort of hotel where you had to change for dinner.

  Both times she had found it tremendously exciting, but today she made an effort to be consciously casual about the whole business, so that any person who happened to look her way would get the impression that she was a seasoned, vastly experienced traveller.

  Her clothes helped. Because her mother, perhaps to assuage unadmitted stirrings of guilt, had taken Lucy to the Gap, and there bought her daughter a number of delectable things. So she was wearing the new jeans, warm ones, lined in red brushed cotton. Her boots were pale suede with thick rubber soles, and her jacket scarlet, quilted and padded, a bit like being bundled up in an eiderdown. As well, they had bought two thick polo-neck sweaters, one navy and one white; a black miniskirt; and two pairs of thick black tights. The final item was her rucksack, navyblue canvas piped in red, in which Lucy had packed her diary, her purse, a brush and comb, and a bar of chocolate. Last night she had washed her hair, and this morning brushed it back into a long ponytail, secured with a cotton scrunchie. She felt sleek and neat. A credit to Carrie.

  Carrie looked, as always, immensely elegant, in long boots, her loden coat, and a black fox fur hat. Lucy was very aware of heads turning to watch as Carrie walked by, pushing their trolley with the luggage. The only thing was, poor Carrie had a bit of a cold. It wasn’t the sort of cold that made her look ugly, simply a bit frail. She said she had started feeling rough a day or so ago-there was a lot of flu going about-but it was only a cold, and she had dosed herself with medicaments and would be fine once she started breathing the clean, cold Scottish air.

  They checked in, went through Security, and waiting for their flight to be called, Lucy began to feel safe. Ever since the plans had been laid for Christmas, she had not only been counting the days, but at the same time been prey to a number of nervous forebodings. Something, she was sure, was bound to happen to put a stop to her going with Carrie. Somebody would fall ill, or Gran would decide all at once that Lucy should not stay with Elfrida Phipps, of whom she did not approve, and whom Lucy was longing to meet. Perhaps, in America, Randall Fischer would have a heart attack, or die, and the phone would ring in London to tell Lucy that she was not to come.

  But, miraculously, disaster did not strike, and at last they were in the plane, and unless the aircraft actually fell out of the sky, Lucy knew that nothing now could stop them. She sat with her forehead pressed against the little window, staring down at an England spread like a greenish-grey quilt and patterned with slow-moving cloud shadows.

  For, extraordinarily enough, it was a lovely, peaceful morning. Cold, but not raining, and with no wind-chill to freeze the bones. Above the clouds, the sky was a pure, pale blue, the horizon hazy. Lucy thought about people on the ground looking up, and seeing their jet stream, and perhaps wondering where the plane was heading. Just as she looked down on what appeared to be stretches of uninhabited country, the only clue to any sort of industry being a tiny puff of smoke from a group of cooling towers. She wondered which was the real life. Who were the real people.

  The stewardess came around with little trays of food. Rolls and butter, marmalade, a sliver of bacon, a tiny bunch of green grapes. There was coffee or tea, and both Carrie and Lucy had coffee. Everything was teeny, doll-sized, all fitted neatly onto a little plastic tray. Lucy was hungry and ate everything, and when Carrie didn’t want her roll, Lucy ate hers as well. After the trays had been taken away, Carrie read the paper and Lucy turned back to gaze out of the window, because she didn’t want to miss a single inch of Scotland.

  She thought perhaps when they got there, it would be raining, or even snowing, but the skies remained wonderfully clear. When the plane began to lose height, the terrain below them slowly took shape, and she saw snow on the tops of mountains and a lot of dark fur which turned into plantations of conifer. Then the blue gleam of the sea, boats, and a bridge over a wide firth. The plane banked and turned before coming in to land, and to the west stood bastions of snow-covered mountains, all glittering in the pale sunshine. Lucy knew that they could not have looked more beautiful and told herself that this had to be a good omen.

  Carrie folded her paper and stowed it away. They smiled at each other.

  “All right?” Carrie asked. Lucy nodded.

  They landed, huge tyres thumping on tarmac. She saw the terminal building… it looked a bit like a large golf clubhouse … and there were flags flying in a brisk breeze.

  “We are going to be met,” Carrie had told her.

  “Whom by?”

  “A taxi from Creagan. The driver’s called Alec Dobbs.”

  “How shall we know him?”

  “He’ll be holding a board with “Sutton’ written on it.”

  And once they had reclaimed their suitcases from the carousel, he was there, in the Arrivals Hall. A solid-looking man in a padded wind-cheater, with a faded tweed cap pulled down over his brow. As well, a number of other fascinating individuals stood about. A lanky old man in a deerstalker hat. A trousered lady with wild white hair and weather-beaten cheeks and … best of all… a man in a faded and tattered kilt. Lucy could not help staring because his blue knees looked so cold.

  “… Well, and it is good to see you,” Alec Dobbs was saying.

  “And did you have a good flight?” Not a bit like the usual run of taxi drivers, more like an old friend. He shook hands with both of them before gathering up their suitcases as though they weighed nothing, and leading the way out. The sun, low in the sky, was palely shining, but it felt considerably colder than London, and there was still an edging of old snow around the border of the car-park. The air smelt of pine, and when Lucy breathed it in, the inside of her nose felt so cold that she sneezed. She had never been to Switzerland, but decided that this was probably how Switzerland felt, with the sunshine and the snow and the pine trees, all arched by a pristine, cloudless sky.

/>   His car was a four-wheel-drive Subaru. Loading their luggage in the back, he explained, “I have another car, a big Rover, which would be more comfortable for you, but we have high ground to cross on the Black Isle, and the snow is still lying.”

  Carrie got into the back of the Subaru, and Lucy sat beside Alec.

  “Have you a lot of snow?” she asked him, because she had never experienced a white Christmas, and longed to do so . A white Christmas truly would be the icing on the cake.

  “Not a great deal, but it stays, which means there is more to come.” He had a soft voice, precise and gentle. It was the first time Lucy was to hear the voice of Sutherland.

  “How long a drive is it to Creagan?”

  “An hour and a quarter, perhaps. No more.” Lucy looked at her watch. It was eleven-fifteen. They would be there, probably, about half past twelve. In time for lunch. She hoped it would be something hot and robust. Despite the two rolls, she was beginning to be hungry again.

  “Is this the first time you have come to Creagan?”

  “I’ve never been to Scotland before.”