The Green Flash

  ‘So far as they are going, yes.’

  ‘You are staying here a while?’

  ‘Oh, a week or so.’

  III

  I stayed a week or so. There were other things to do besides massacring a porch. By a rickety old jetty at the edge of Loch Ashe was a boat. It was in poor shape but apparently belonged to me. The frame was fairly sound but it needed a repaint and new oars. I set about that and with Coppell’s help worked on it all week.

  I thought once or twice about Cameron Abden and wondered who was the daftest: him playing his pipes while the bullets whistled or me half strangling an ex-convict with a stocking-mask over my face.

  On the second Monday a letter from Shona:

  I do not know if you have heard from Erica but I have confronted her with her statement and she says she does not say I knew about the problems she might face if having another child. She says that she meant that I knew all about the abortion. In any case the specialist does not say she could have no more children, only that she was so constituted that childbearing shall be difficult and perhaps dangerous.

  John died last Monday. In later years we were not so close but he is my husband and colleague and kind companion so long that I have lost a piece of my early life. He will be missed in so many ways. And coming so close after the death of my father leaves a gap in my existence it is hard to fill.

  As you know, John was strongly opposed to the idea of our becoming a public limited liability company. Now I shall go into this with my lawyers and accountants, and if or when you shall come back I would wish you to participate in these talks. There is much to be said for the idea. As from next month we are also increasing your salary by £10,000 a year. I could not make this sort of increase in John’s lifetime without offending him more than ever. This brings your salary to a higher level than the comparable position in much larger companies like Rubinstein, de Luxembourg, or Arden.

  Now I have to tell you that six men have been charged with conspiracy to defraud and remanded in custody. To my astonishment one of them is Maurice Laval who was so prominent in our trade not so long ago. His namesake, when Prime Minister of France, was called a turnvest – as indeed he was – because you could read his name backwards or forwards the same. An Inspector Chalmers rang for you yesterday but I said you were on leave. I gave him your telephone number in Scotland, where I presume you still are.

  The newspaper says further arrests can be expected.

  I trust you are enjoying your holiday. It has been very stuffy

  in London, and sultry.

  The following day Alison turned up.

  I’d forgotten how composed she was, how smooth her hair and her voice and her manner. Yet smooth didn’t mean slick, it meant unruffled. I wondered what it would be like to ruffle her.

  She had a little girl with her. ‘This is Trina. This is Uncle David. You are a sort of uncle, aren’t you, by marriage?’

  ‘Second cousin probably. Ask Aunt Helen, she’ll be sure to know. Hullo.’ We shook hands. ‘Trina? Is that short for something?’

  ‘Catriona.’

  ‘Romantic.’

  ‘Stevenson didn’t invent it,’ said Alison shortly. ‘You have a new car?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll take you for a run in it sometime.’

  ‘Oh, super!’ said the little girl. ‘How fast does it go?’ I made a face at Alison. ‘Fairly fast. But the engine sings lovely noises: that’s what I like most about it.’

  Trina ran across and stared at the low red thing. I said to her mother: ‘Sorry. Wrong instincts to encourage.’

  ‘Oh, she has them already. She always wants me to drive fast in the Mini.’

  ‘I thought you were away for a month.’

  ‘I have been. We came back on Saturday.’

  We looked at each other with a degree of interest you couldn’t disguise. Wind blew my hair more than it did hers. She broke the moment by turning to glance up at the house. ‘You’ve had the porch taken off.’

  ‘I did it myself the first weekend. The builders were supposed to be repairing the marks I’d left – said they’d do it this week.’

  ‘That means six weeks. But the house looks better anyway. I never thought of having it taken off.’

  ‘It didn’t offend you?’

  ‘Not a bit.’ She laughed coolly. ‘I have no architectural taste … But I suppose you know what will happen? The winter gales and rain will beat directly on the front door and seep into the hall. The porch also acted as a valuable dam for the wind. You could close one door before opening the other.’

  ‘Ah. Whereas now carpets will flap all the way through the house. We’ll have to hang a curtain inside. You lose one eyesore and put up another.’

  ‘We?’ she said. ‘Your wife is not here, though?’

  ‘She may come again.’

  ‘Of course. She gave me the impression that Scotland was not really her scene.’

  ‘At the moment she has other things on her mind.’

  Later I took them a ride in the car, driving pretty steady on the busy roads, but showing off its enormous acceleration. Trina shrieked with delight.

  ‘You are ruining her character,’ said Alison.

  ‘And yours?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, mine is already set in its own peculiar directions.’

  ‘Which don’t include an unstable cousin-in-law?’

  ‘There could be dangers in that.’

  ‘What sort of dangers?’

  ‘Physical, of course.’ She added quickly: ‘In this car. What else?’

  ‘I thought your Catholic soul might feel imperilled.’

  ‘Mine is not a Catholic soul. I was born a Protestant, but changed to please Malcolm.’

  ‘Did that worry you?’

  ‘Not particularly. My convictions are not of the strongest.’

  ‘It doesn’t give you an extra feeling of guilt?’

  ‘No. There’s no guilt one can’t be absolved from.’

  ‘Happy thought.’ I stopped to allow some sheep to drift across the road. ‘Tell me, what did you mean – or someone mean, was it you? – speaking of the Abdens as being a Catholic enclave here? As if –’

  ‘As if the whole of this area were strictly Protestant? Well, it is. Nobody cares so much now, but they used to care. There are Catholic families dotted about Scotland, but relatively few in Ross and Cromarty.’

  We drove home. Alison refused to come in; they had to be getting back.

  ‘Come again,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks.’ Trina climbed into the driver’s side of the Mini and was persuaded to move reluctantly into the passenger’s seat. Alison got in and swung in her legs, pulled down the seat belt.

  ‘Saturday,’ I said, ‘would be a good day. Come after lunch and we’ll go for another drive. Or a walk if it grabs you.’

  ‘Trina has a French lesson on Saturday afternoons from Father Donald.’

  ‘Well, come on your own, then.’

  ‘Aw,’ said Trina. ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Come to lunch with us next Monday, then,’ said Alison. ‘Trina can have a ride with you after.’

  ‘And Saturday?’ I said.

  Alison looked speculatively at the gathering clouds. ‘What about Saturday?’

  ‘Come without Trina. We’ll still probably find something to talk about – even if it’s only old ghosts.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, her eyes not higher than the steering-wheel. ‘See you about three.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  One advantage of breaking the entail on the house is that you can then raise a mortgage on it, and this was the way I’d paid for the roof repairs without calling on Erica’s bounty. The cost of the new Ferrari, even with a generous trade-in price for the Jaguar, was ghastly, but this was to be paid for monthly by banker’s order. All very fine so long as I stuck it as now highly paid sales manager of Shona and Co., still easier if I became, as I was likely to become, managing director of Shona and Co. Ltd. It was there f
or the taking but I wasn’t in the mood to take it.

  All very fine too if I stayed married to the daughter of Lease’s Cream Crackers. But if we were getting unhitched the picture wasn’t so jolly. What shall we do for the rent? as Sickert said.

  I sweated away at the boat. No great fisherman me, but I thought when it was done I’d have a go at enticing the trout and the salmon.

  The jetty was groggy too and wood had been ordered for a rebuild. As usual everything took for ever to come, but a pile of stuff arrived on the Friday afternoon and we got it sorted out to begin. When Alison came on the Saturday I took her down to see it.

  She said: ‘I didn’t know you were so ready with your hands.’

  ‘Don’t remind me of it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Sorry. Sick joke.’ I lifted a plank and pushed it in with the rest. ‘Seriously, this just shows what frustration will do.’

  ‘Frustration?’

  ‘So much of the property is falling around my ears. And I took a course in fretwork once.’

  She didn’t smile. ‘Pity you can’t stay longer.’

  ‘Who says how long I’m staying?’

  ‘Nobody. I presume this is only a holiday?’

  ‘Not with definite limits.’

  ‘Mme Shona is very understanding.’

  ‘She can be. What are we going to do this afternoon – drive or walk?’

  ‘Let’s walk.’

  ‘It looks like rain.’

  ‘Are you afraid of getting wet?’

  ‘Not if you’re not.’

  She was wearing a polo-necked sweater of fine green wool with one of those shortish tweed skirts fastened at the side with an ornamental safety pin. Hefty brogues.

  ‘Is that the Abden tartan?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, no. It’s my own family.’

  ‘Got a mack?’

  ‘In the car. I’ll fetch it.’

  We started off up the hill, rather the way I’d gone that morning with Shona, but we went further, walking into the low clouds, but no rain yet.

  She said: ‘Up here at one time the whole place was full of briar roses. It must have been a picture in the spring. That was before the sheep came and ate them all.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Coppell.’

  ‘Must have been a long time ago.’

  ‘Well, his father was here, and his grandfather before him. Do you never talk to Douglas Coppell? He’s a mine of information.’

  ‘Are they Catholics?’

  ‘Yes. They go in their old car every Saturday to Mass and Confession.’

  ‘It never occurred to me until I knocked down the porch and Mrs C started exclaiming about Holy Mary!’

  ‘Coppell’s grandfather was Irish,’ she said. And then: ‘D’you know those fine pines behind the house – the six big ones. Well, Malcolm’s great-great-grandfather planted those and put briar roses in at the same time so that the cattle wouldn’t push the saplings over rubbing their hides against them.’

  We voyaged in silence for a bit, then she stopped and nicked a strand of hair out of her eyes, looked back. We hadn’t gone much higher but the land was stone-barren, just rock and peat, the odd patch of heather. We couldn’t see much because of the mist.

  ‘Know your way back?’ I said. ‘Because I don’t.’

  ‘Och aye. I’ve been this way afore, afore.’

  ‘With Malcolm?’

  ‘Not often. He was not fond of walking.’

  ‘Tell me about him,’ I said.

  The exercise had dabbed a touch of colour in her face, which was normally pearl-pale.

  ‘You met him.’

  ‘Well, yes, but.’

  ‘Well, what did you think of him?’

  ‘Interesting. A few unlikable characteristics – least they seemed so to a misanthrope like me – but stimulating. Quality in him. Larger than life, and maybe that’s a plus in a grey society.’

  ‘He was certainly stimulating.’

  ‘You’ll miss him a lot, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘like a high temperature.’

  I stared at her still face. She was really a looker, but you wouldn’t lay any odds on what she was thinking.

  ‘Feverish?’

  She glanced at me, summing me up before returning to take a view of the unviewable horizon. ‘ You could say that.’

  ‘Up and down, in fact?’

  ‘Oh, down and up, certainly. Of course there were moments.’

  ‘Only moments?’

  ‘Let’s go on,’ she said. ‘There’s a cairn up here. That usually marks the limits.’

  ‘Who owns the land?’

  ‘The Earl of Schofield. But he lives too far away and his keepers, such as there are, know me.’

  We reached the pile of stones, and as we did so rain began to infiltrate in the breeze.

  She said: ‘Tell me about yourself for a change.’

  ‘You must have my history at your fingertips.’

  ‘Personal accounts differ, don’t they?’

  I muttered a few things, which she listened to with her usual care and stillness. As the rain got thicker I took a cap out of my raincoat pocket, and she put on a mackintosh hood. We began to walk back. It was thick, clinging, dense rain, not the sort my tailor had been dreaming about when he fitted me with this coat. Doubtful whether she was going to be much better; the mackintosh was only the length of her skirt and in the fashion of those garments the rain ran straight off them on to the legs of the wearer.

  On the way down she asked me about Shona, and I gave her an edited version. She appeared to have cottoned on to our former goings-on. She didn’t seem to have much to ask about Erica; only Shona, as if she were the real rival. Rival for what, I asked myself? Jumping Jesus, let’s not take anything for granted.

  By the time the house came in sight we were both more than a little wet. In spite of the hood the rain was glistening on her eyelashes.’

  ‘This is Scotland. People here are used to getting damp; they take no notice of it.’

  ‘Any more than the sheep?’

  ‘Well, if you like to say so.’

  As we reached the door of the house she said: ‘I always carry a spare skirt and pair of shoes in the car. I’ll get them.’

  I waited for her and then we went in and I put a match to the drawing-room fire. ‘Help yourself to anything you want. You know the house better than I do. The new kitchen provides hot water everywhere, so take a bath or a shower if you feel like it.’

  ‘I’ll just change these things.’

  While she was upstairs I made tea and brought it in. The fire was leaping for joy but spitting resin all over the place. My own jacket and trousers were soaking, and when she came down I went up and changed.

  She was pouring tea.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Sorry to tell you it’s the Coppells’ day off.’

  ‘I know. It’s always been Saturdays.’

  ‘Ah.’ I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘This is damp.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘I’ll stoke the fire,’ I said. ‘Pull up your chair.’

  So we sat and sipped for a few minutes. She clearly hadn’t brought a change of stockings and her legs were the same colour as her face – pearl-pale – and of the most seductive shape. I thought, if Erica finds me a shade unsatisfactory at present I’m damned sure Alison wouldn’t.

  ‘Did you do this often with Malcolm?’ I asked.

  ‘Do what?’ she asked, sounding startled.

  ‘Sip tea together in this room in companionable silence.’

  ‘Oh … No, not often. In fact I don’t remember a time. He was a very restless man.’

  ‘Yes, I could see that.’ I thought of his big eyes, restless indeed, when I introduced him to Rona Anderson at Claridge’s.

  ‘He was always looking for something new. Always trying to impress someone. Always concerned about his public image.’

  I realize
d it could have been a bad idea to grasp her shoulder, though so lightly. It turned the attention.

  ‘Also,’ she said, ‘he was a terrible liar.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, looking her over. ‘Pity.’

  ‘Are you, David?’

  ‘What, a liar? Was at one time. No longer, I think.’ Quite surprised to say so, never having asked myself the question. Except to Derek, which perhaps didn’t count.

  ‘Ordinary things of course he didn’t lie about, but anything to do with his ambition, his presentation of himself. I suppose you never saw his entry in Who’s Who?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wrong age; too many accomplishments; laying claim to some distant barony of Kilclair, so that he could be known as Abden of Kilclair while his father was still alive.’

  ‘Was he ever a Doctor of Philosophy?’

  ‘No. He spent a year on it, then threw it up. Yet he was really very clever.’

  ‘Malcolm?’

  ‘Yes. If he’d taken politics seriously, or anything seriously enough. He’d such a good brain. But it was always clouded with conceit.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s an Abden failing,’ I said. ‘More tea?’

  ‘Thanks, no. I ought to go.’

  ‘Why?’

  She looked at me. ‘No reason at all.’

  ‘I’m glad of that.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘why did you say you were misanthropic?’

  ‘Because I am. People on the, whole I find hard to take.’

  ‘Is that why you are not getting on with Erica?’

  ‘Who said I was not?’

  ‘It’s a little obvious. What’s the matter? Are you shopping around?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor going back to your old love?’

  ‘Shona? No.’

  ‘Is Erica off with other men?’

  ‘No. Her favourite company at the moment is the gay boys.’

  ‘How strange. I can’t stand them. So what are you going to do?’

  ‘About Erica? I don’t know. Just at the moment I don’t much care.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I smiled at her. ‘ I’m short-sighted, I don’t believe in looking beyond the next hour.’

  She was very still again, hands clasped around one bare knee, her hair dank; she might have been listening.