Without waiting for the snappy answer which I would have loved to be able to deliver, he went back outside. I left the door open and went back to the fire and put on another log, and found that my hands were shaking and my heart thumping like a drum. I straightened the hearth-rug, kicked Rusty’s bone under the chair and was lighting myself a cigarette when he came back into the cabin, shutting the back porch door behind him.
I turned to face him. He was dark, with the pale skin and black hair that a good many Highlanders possess, thin and rather scholarly looking in an angular and uncoordinated way. He wore a smooth tweed suit, worn slightly at elbows and knees and buttonholes, a brown and white checked shirt, and a dark green tie, and he looked as though he might be a schoolmaster or a professor of some obscure science. There was no guessing at his age. He could have been anything between thirty and fifty.
He said, “How do you feel now?”
“I’m all right,” but my hand was still shaking and he saw it.
“It wouldn’t do you any harm to have a little drink.”
“I don’t know if there’s anything in the house.”
“Where could we look?”
“Under the window seat?”
He went over and opened the cupboard, groped around a bit, and came out with fluff all over the sleeve of his coat and a quarter of a bottle of Haig in his hand.
“The very thing. Now all we need is a glass.”
I went into the kitchen and came back with two and a jug of water, and the ice-tray out of the refrigerator, and watched while he poured the drinks. They looked suspiciously dark. I said, “I don’t like whisky, much.”
“Think of it as medicine.” He handed it to me.
“I don’t want to get plastered.”
“On that, you won’t.”
It made sense. The whisky tasted smoky and was marvellously warming. Comforted by it, embarrassed at having been such a ninny, I smiled tentatively at him.
He grinned back. “Why don’t we sit down?”
So we sat, me on the hearthrug, and he on the edge of Father’s big chair, his hands loose between his knees, and the drink on the floor between his feet. He said, “Out of interest, what made you suddenly open the door?”
“It was the way you said your name. Stewart. You come from Scotland, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Caple Bridge.”
“But that’s near Elvie.”
“I know. You see, I’m with Ramsay McKenzie and King…”
“My grandmother’s lawyers.”
“That’s right.”
“But I don’t remember you.”
“I didn’t join the firm until five years ago.”
There was a coldness around my heart, but I made myself ask: “There’s nothing … wrong?”
“Nothing wrong.” His voice was very reassuring.
“Then why have you come?”
“It’s a question,” said David Stewart, “of a number of unanswered letters.”
3
After a little I said, “I don’t understand.”
“Four, to be exact. Three from Mrs Bailey herself and one from me, written on her behalf.”
“Written who to?” It was not a time to worry about my grammar.
“Your father.”
“When?”
“During the course of the last two months.”
“Did you send the letters here? I mean, we move around so much.”
“You had written to your grandmother yourself, giving her this address.”
This was true. I always let her know when we moved. I threw my half-smoked cigarette into the fire, and tried to get used to this extraordinary situation. My father, for all his faults, was a most un-secret man … if anything, he erred in the opposite direction, loudly fuming and complaining for days on end if anything annoyed or disturbed him. But I had heard nothing about any letters.
He prompted me. “You haven’t seen any letters?”
“No. But that’s not surprising because Father always collects the mail himself, every day, from the drug store.”
“Perhaps he never opened them?”
But this, too, was out of character. Father always opened letters. He didn’t necessarily read them, but there was always the happy possibility that the envelope might contain a cheque.
I said, “No, he wouldn’t do that.” I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat and pushed my hair back off my face. “What were they about? Or perhaps you don’t know.”
“Yes, of course I know.” He could sound very dry, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine him ensconced behind an old-fashioned desk, clearing his throat along with his emotions, and dealing crisply with all the incomprehensible pitfalls of wills, affidavits, sales, leases and orders to view. “It’s just that your grandmother wants you to come back to Scotland … pay a visit…”
I said, “I know she does—she’s always talking about it in her letters.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to come?”
“Yes … of course I do…”
I thought of Father, remembered that long-ago overheard conversation. “I don’t know … I mean, I can’t just make up my mind like that.…”
“Is there any reason why you shouldn’t come?”
“Well, of course there is … my father…”
“You mean, there’s no one to keep house for him?”
“No I don’t mean that at all.” He waited for me to enlarge on this statement, perhaps to tell him what I did mean. I didn’t want to meet his eye, and turned away from him to stare into the fire. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that my face wore an expression which could be described as sheepish.
He said, “You know, there was never any bad feeling about the fact that your father brought you over to America…”
“She wanted me to stay at Elvie.”
“You know that, then?”
“Yes, I heard them quarrelling. They never quarrelled usually. I think they got on very well. But there was a terrible row over me.”
“But that was seven years ago. Now, surely, between us, we can make some arrangements.”
I made the most obvious excuse. “But it’s so expensive…”
“Mrs Bailey, of course, will stand you the fare.” (I imagined, ruefully, Father’s reaction to this.) “You don’t need to be away for more than a month.” He said again, “Don’t you want to come?”
His manner disarmed me. “Yes, of course I do…”
“Then why this lack of enthusiasm?”
“I don’t want to upset my father. And he obviously doesn’t want me to come, or he’d have answered those letters you spoke about.”
“Yes, the letters. I wonder where they would be.”
I indicated the table behind him, the pile of manuscript and reference books, old files, envelopes and regrettably unpaid bills. “Over there, I suppose.”
“I wonder why he never told you about them.”
I said nothing, but thought that I knew. In a way, he resented Elvie and the fact that it meant so much to me. He was, perhaps, a little jealous of my mother’s family. He was afraid of losing me.
I said, “I’ve no idea.”
“Well, when are you expecting him back from Los Angeles?”
I said, “I don’t think you should see him. It would only make him miserable, because even if he agreed to my going, I couldn’t leave him alone, here.”
“But surely we could arrange something…”
“No, we couldn’t. He has to have someone to look after him. He’s the most impractical person in the world … he’d never buy any food, or gas for the car, and if I left him, I’d just be worried sick about him all the time.”
“Jane … you do have to think about yourself.…”
“Some other time I’ll come. Tell my grandmother some other time.”
In silence he considered this. He finished his drink, and then set down the empty glass. “Well, let’
s leave it like this. I’m driving back to Los Angeles tomorrow morning, about eleven. I have a seat booked for you on the plane to New York, Tuesday morning. There’s no reason on earth why you shouldn’t sleep on this, and if you change your mind…”
“I won’t.”
He ignored this. “If you change your mind, there’s nothing to stop you coming with me.” He stood up, looming over me. “And I still think that you should.”
I don’t like being loomed over, so I stood up too.
“You seemed very sure that I would come with you.”
“I hoped that you would.”
“You think I’m just making excuses, don’t you?”
“Not entirely.”
“I feel very guilty that you’ve travelled so far for nothing.”
“I was in New York, on business. And I’ve enjoyed meeting you, and only sorry that I missed your father.” He held out his hand. “Goodbye, Jane.” After a second’s hesitation, I put mine into it. Americans aren’t much good at shaking hands and one gets out of the habit. “And I’ll send your love to your grandmother.”
“Yes, and Sinclair.”
“Sinclair?”
“You see him, don’t you? When he comes to Elvie?”
“Yes. Yes, of course I do. And I’ll certainly give him your love.”
I said, “Tell him to write,” and then bent to make a fuss of Rusty, because my eyes were filled with tears, and I didn’t want David Stewart to see.
When he had gone, I went back into the cabin, and over to the table where my father kept all his papers. After a little I found, one by one, the four unanswered letters, all opened, and obviously read. I didn’t read them. My finer instincts prevailed—and anyway I already knew what they contained, so I simply replaced them, buried as before.
I went to kneel on the window seat, to open the window and hang out. It was very dark, the ocean inky, the air cold, but my terrors had evaporated. I thought of Elvie, and longed to be there. I thought of geese flying the winter skies, and the smell of peat burning in the fireplace in the hall. I thought of the loch, brilliant blue and calm as a mirror, or grey and lashed into white waves by northern gales. I wanted to be there, suddenly, so badly that it was a physical ache.
And I was angry with my father. I didn’t want to leave him, but surely he could have discussed the matter with me, given me the chance to make my own decision. I was twenty-one, no longer a child, and resented what I considered an unbearingly selfish and old-fashioned attitude.
Just wait till he gets back, I promised myself. Wait till I face him with those letters. I’ll just tell him … I’ll …
But my anger was short-lived. I could never stay angry for long. Cooled by the night air, perhaps, it simmered away and died, and I was left, feeling strangely flat. Nothing, after all, had changed. I would stay with him because I loved him, because he wanted me, because he needed me. There was no possible alternative. And I would not confront him with the letters, because to be found out would embarrass and demean him, and it was important, if we were to have any sort of a future together, that he would always be bigger and stronger and wiser than I was.
I was engaged in scrubbing the kitchen floor the next morning, when I heard the unmistakable grinding of the old Dodge as it came over the hill and down the track to Reef Point. I hastily swiped at the last square foot or so of cracked brown linoleum, then got up off my knees, wrang out the floor cloth, emptied the dirty water down the drain, and went out through the back porch door to meet my father, wiping my hands on the old striped apron as I went.
It was a gorgeous day; the sun hot, the sky blue and scudding with bright white clouds, the sparkling morning filled with wind and the crash of high-tide rollers pouring up on to the beach. I had already done a line of washing and now it strained and flapped at the rope, and I ducked beneath this and went out on to the road as the car came bumping and lurching over the ruts towards me.
I saw at once that my father was not alone. Because of the fine weather, he had put the hood down, and beside him, unmistakable head of red hair a-blow in the breeze, sat Linda Lansing. When she saw me she hung over the side of the car to wave, and her white poodle, sitting on her knee, hung out too, and went into a paroxysm of barking as though I had no right to be there.
Rusty, who had been out on the beach having a good game with an old bit of basket, heard the poodle, and came at once to my rescue, galloping around the corner of the cabin in full cry, snarling and barking, and making little dashes at the Dodge with his teeth bared, unable to wait for the happy moment when he could sink them into the poodle’s neck. My father swore, Linda screamed and hugged the poodle, the poodle yapped, and I had to take Rusty by his flea collar and haul him indoors and order him to shut up and behave, before there was the slightest chance of any sort of human conversation.
I left Rusty sulking and went back out again. My father was out of the car. “Hello, cutie.” He came around to give me a hug and a kiss. It was like being hugged by a gorilla and his beard scraped my cheek. “Everything all right?”
“Yes, fine,” I turned from his embrace. “Hi Linda.”
“Hi, honey.”
“Sorry about the dog.” I went to open the door for her. She wore full make-up, false eyelashes, a pale blue jump suit and gold ballet slippers. The poodle had a pink collar, studded with rhinestones.
“That’s OK. Mitzi’s highly-strung I guess. Something to do with being so highly-bred.” She put up her face, lips bunched, to receive my kiss. I gave her one and the poodle started yapping again.
“For God’s sake,” said my father, “keep that bloody dog quiet,” whereupon Linda tipped it unceremoniously out of the car and climbed out after it.
Linda Lansing was an actress. Twenty years or so ago she had turned up in Hollywood as a starlet, which meant a prodigious personal publicity campaign followed by a string of undistinguished movies, in which she usually played some sort of a gypsy or peasant girl, wearing an off-the-shoulder drawnstring blouse, dark red lips and brooding expression, very sulky. But, inevitably, this type of movie, along with her style of acting, went out of fashion, and Linda went with them. Astutely, for she was never stupid, she swiftly married. “My husband comes before my career,” read the captions beneath their wedding photographs, and for some time she disappeared from the Hollywood scene altogether. But lately, having divorced her third husband, and not yet having buttonholed the fourth, she had started to appear again, in small parts and on television. To a young generation of viewers, she was a new face, and, with clever direction, revealed an entirely unsuspected flair for comedy.
We had met her at one of those dreary Sunday brunch pool parties which were so much part of the Los Angeles scene. My father had latched on to her at once, as being the only woman in the place worth talking to. I like her as well. She has a vulgar sense of humour, a deep plummy voice and a surprising ability to laugh at herself.
My father is attractive to women, but has always handled his liaisons with an admirable discretion. I knew that he had embarked on an affair with Linda, but I had hardly expected that he would bring her back to Reef Point with him.
I decided to play it very cool. “Well, this is a surprise. What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
“Oh, you know how it is, honey, when your father starts twisting your arm. And just smell that sea air.” She took a great lungful, coughed slightly, and turned back to the car to extricate her handbag. It was then that I saw the lavish luggage piled on the back seat. Three cases, a wardrobe-bag, a beauty box, a mink coat in a plastic bag, and Mitzi’s dog basket, complete with pink rubber bone. I gaped at its quantity, but before I could say anything, my father had elbowed me out of the way and already lifted out two of the cases.
“Well, don’t stand there with your mouth open,” he said. “Bring something in.”
And with that he headed for the cabin. Linda, after one look at my expression, tactfully decided that Mitzi needed a run on the beach and
disappeared. I started after my father, and then thought better of it, went back for the dog basket, and started off again.
I found him in the living-room having put the two suitcases down in the middle of the floor, thrown his long-peaked cap on to a chair, and unloaded some bundles of old letters and papers out of his pocket on to the table. The room, which I had only just cleaned and tidied, became immediately disordered, impermanent, frantic. My father could do this to any place simply by walking into it. Now, he went over to the window to lean out and check on the view, and get a good lungful of sea air. Over his massive shoulder I could see the distant figure of Linda, skittering about with the poodle at the sea’s edge. Rusty, still sulking on the window seat, did not even thump his tail.
My father turned, reaching in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. He appeared delighted with himself. “Well,” he said, “aren’t you going to ask how everything went?” He lit the cigarette, and then looked up, and frowned, flicking the lighted match out of the window behind him. “What are you standing holding the dog basket for? Put the bloody thing down.”
I didn’t. I said, “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
I realized that all this hearty good cheer was part of a big bluster.
“You know very well what I mean. Linda.”
“What about Linda? You like her, don’t you?”
“Of course I like her, but that’s hardly the point. What’s she doing here?”
“I’ve asked her to stay.”
“With all that luggage? How long for, for heaven’s sake?”
“Well…” he gestured vaguely with his hand. “For as long as she wants.”
“Isn’t she working?”
“Oh, she’s chucked all that.” He went prowling off to the kitchen in search of a can of beer. I heard the refrigerator opening and shutting. “She gets just about as sick of L.A. as we did. So I thought why not?” He appeared again at the open kitchen door with the open beer can in his hand. “The suggestion was hardly out of my mouth, when she found someone to rent her house, along with the maid, and she was packed and ready.” He frowned again. “Jane, have you conceived some sort of an affection for that dog basket?”