September

  This was his last night with Vi. Tomorrow, his mother was going to come and fetch him, and take him home. It had been a funny sort of few days, because the Strathcroy Primary had already opened for the winter term, and all his friends were back at their lessons. And so Henry, destined for Templehall, had nobody to play with. But somehow it hadn’t mattered. Edie was there most mornings, and Vi was always full of bright ideas for a small boy’s amusement and entertainment. They had gardened together, and she had taught him how to make fairy cakes, and for the evenings she had produced a mammoth jigsaw puzzle with which they had struggled together. One afternoon Kedejah Ishak had come for tea after school, and she and Henry had built a dam in the stream and become extremely wet. Another day he and Vi had taken a picnic lunch up to the loch and made a collection of twenty-four different wildflowers. She had shown him how to press them dry between leaves of blotting paper and thick books, and when they were ready he was going to stick them into an old exercise book with bits of Sellotape.

  He had had his supper and his bath, and was now in bed reading his library book, which was by Enid Blyton and called The Famous Five. He heard the clock in the hall strike eight o’clock, followed by the sound of Vi’s footsteps treading heavily up the staircase, which meant that she was coming to say goodnight to him.

  His door was open. He laid down his book and waited for her to come through it. She appeared, tall and large and solid, and settled herself comfortably on the foot of his bed. The springs creaked. He was cosy in his own sleeping-bag, but she had tucked a blanket over the top of it, and he thought that it was one of the best feelings, having someone sit on your bed, with the blanket pulled tight over your legs. It made him feel very safe.

  Vi wore a silk blouse with a cameo brooch at the collar, and a soft, heathery-blue cardigan, and she had brought her spectacles with her, which meant that she was quite prepared, if he wished, to read aloud a chapter or two from The Famous Five.

  She said, “This time tomorrow, you’ll be back in your own bed. We’ve had a good time, though, haven’t we?”

  “Yes.” He thought of all the fun they had had. Perhaps it was wrong to want to go home and leave her, but at least he knew that she was safe and happy alone in her little house. He wished that he could feel the same about Edie.

  Lately, Henry had stopped dropping in on Edie, because he was frightened of Lottie. There was something witchy about her, with her strange dark eyes that never blinked, and her ungainly, unaccountable movements, and her endless flood of chat that was too disjointed to be called conversation. Most of the time Henry hadn’t the least idea what she was talking about, and he knew that it exhausted Edie. Edie had told him to be nice to Lottie, and he had done his best, but the truth was that he hated her, and could not bear to think of Edie closeted with her scary cousin, and having to deal with her, day in and day out.

  From time to time he had seen headlines in the newspapers about poor people being murdered with axes or carving knives, and felt certain that Lottie, if roused or thwarted, was perfectly capable of attacking darling Edie — perhaps late at night, in the dark — and leaving her, dead and bloodstained, on the kitchen floor.

  He shivered at the thought. Vi noticed the shiver. “Is something worrying you? A ghost just went over your grave.”

  This observation was too close for comfort. “I was thinking about Edie’s cousin. I don’t like her.”

  “Oh, Henry.”

  “I don’t think Edie is safe with her.”

  Vi made a little face. “To be honest, Henry, I’m not very happy either. But I think that it’s just a great trial for Edie. We talk about her cousin in the mornings, over coffee. Lottie’s certainly a very tiresome lady, but apart from driving Edie to distraction with her ways, I don’t think Edie’s in any real danger. Not the kind you’re imagining.”

  He hadn’t told her what he imagined, but she knew. Vi always knew things like that.

  “You will take care of her, won’t you, Vi? You won’t let anything happen?”

  “No, of course I won’t. And I shall make a point of seeing Edie every day, and keeping an eye on the situation. And I’ll ask Lottie for tea one day, and that’ll give Edie a bit of a breather.”

  “When do you think Lottie will go away?”

  “I don’t know. When she’s better. These things take time.”

  “Edie was so happy, on her own. And now she’s not happy a bit. And she has to sleep on the Put-U-Up. It must be horrid not being in her own room.”

  “Edie is a very kind person. More kind than most of us. She is making a sacrifice for her cousin.”

  Henry thought of Abraham and Isaac. “I hope Lottie doesn’t make a sacrifice of her.”

  Vi laughed. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Don’t go to sleep worrying about Edie. Think about seeing your mother again tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” That was much better. “What time do you think she’ll come?”

  “Well, you’ve got a busy day tomorrow, out with Willy Snoddy and his ferrets. I should think about tea-time. When you get back, she’ll be here.”

  “Do you think she’ll bring me a present from London?”

  “Sure to.”

  “Perhaps she’ll bring you a present, too.”

  “Oh, I don’t expect a present. Besides, it’s my birthday soon, so I’ll get one then. She always gives me something quite special, something that I never realised how much I wanted.”

  “What day is your birthday?” He had forgotten.

  “The fifteenth of September. The day before the Steyntons’ party.”

  “Are you going to have the picnic?”

  Vi always arranged a picnic for her birthday. Everybody came, and they all met up at the loch and lit a fire and cooked sausages, and Vi brought her birthday cake in a big box, and when she cut it, the assembled party stood around and sang “Happy Birthday to You”. Sometimes it was a chocolate cake, and sometimes it was an orange cake. Last year it had been an orange cake.

  He remembered last year. Remembered the inclement day, the racing wind and the scattered showers that had dampened nobody’s enthusiasm. Last year he had given Vi a picture that he had drawn with his felt pens, and which his mother had had framed and mounted, just like a proper picture. Vi had it hanging in her bedroom. This year he was giving her the bottle of rhubarb wine that he had won in the raffle at the church sale.

  This year…He said, “This year, I shan’t be there.”

  “No. This year, you’ll be at boarding school.”

  “Couldn’t you have your birthday earlier, so that I could be there?”

  “Oh, Henry, birthdays don’t work that way. But it won’t be the same without you.”

  “Will you write me a letter, and tell me all about it?”

  “Of course I will. And you shall write to me. There’ll be such a lot that I will want to hear.”

  He said, “I don’t want to go.”

  “No. I don’t suppose you do. But your father thinks that you should go, and he nearly always knows best.”

  “Mummy doesn’t want me to go, either.”

  “That’s because she loves you so. She knows that she’ll miss you.”

  He realised then that this was the first time he and Vi had talked about his going away. This was because Henry did not even want to think about it, let alone discuss it, and Vi had never brought the subject up. But now they had started speaking about it, he discovered that he felt easier. He knew that he could say anything to Vi, and knew, too, that she would never repeat it.

  He said, “They’ve been quarrelling. They’ve been cross with each other.”

  “Yes,” said Vi. “I know.”

  “How do you know, Vi?”

  “I may be old, but I’m not stupid. And your father is my son. Mothers know lots about their sons. The good bits and the not-so-good bits. It doesn’t stop them loving them, but it makes them a little bit more understanding.”

  “It’s been so horrid, with
them so unkind to each other.”

  “It must have been.”

  “I don’t want to go away to school, but I hate them being cross with each other. I simply hate it. It makes the house feel all headachy and ill.”

  Vi sighed. “If you want to know what I think, Henry, I think they’ve both been very short-sighted and selfish. But I haven’t been able to say anything, because it’s none of my business. That’s another thing a mother mustn’t do. She must never interfere.”

  “I really want to go home tomorrow, but…” He gazed at her, his sentence left unfinished, because he didn’t really know what he was trying to say.

  Vi smiled. When she smiled her face creased into a thousand wrinkles. She laid her hand on his. It felt warm and dry, and rough from all the gardening she did.

  She said, “There’s an old saying, that parting makes the heart grow fonder. Your mother and father have had a few days apart, on their own, with time to think things over. I’m sure they’ll both have realised how wrong they have been. You see, they love each other very much, and if you love someone, you need to be with them, close to them. You need to be able to confide, to laugh together. It’s just about as important as breathing. By now, I’m certain that they will have found this out. And I’m just as certain that everything will be just as it was before.”

  “Really certain, Vi?”

  “Really certain.”

  She sounded so certain that Henry felt that way too. Such a relief. It was as though a huge weight had dropped from his shoulders. And this made everything much better. Even the prospect of leaving home and parents and being sent to board at Templehall had lost some of its fearfulness. Nothing could be as bad as thinking that his home would never be the same again. Reassured, and filled with grateful love for his grandmother, he held out his arms, and she leaned forward, and he embraced her, hugging her tight around her neck and pressing kisses on her cheek. When he drew back, he saw that her eyes were very shiny and bright.

  She said, “It’s time to sleep.”

  He was ready for it, now suddenly drowsy. He lay back on the pillow and felt beneath it for Moo.

  Vi laughed at him, but gently, teasing him. “You don’t need that old bit of baby blanket. You’re a grown-up boy now. You can make fairy cakes, and do jigsaw puzzles, and remember the names of all those wildflowers. I think you can do without Moo.”

  Henry screwed up his nose. “But not tonight, Vi.”

  “All right. Not tonight. But tomorrow, maybe.”

  “Yes.” He yawned. “Maybe.”

  She stooped to kiss him, and then got up off the bed. The springs creaked once more. “Goodnight, my lamb.”

  “Goodnight, Vi.”

  She turned out his light and went out of the room, but she left the door open. The darkness was soft and blowy and smelled of the hills. Henry turned on his side, curled up in a ball, and closed his eyes.

  18

  Friday the Twenty-sixth

  When, ten years ago, Violet Aird bought Pennyburn from Archie Balmerino, she had become owner of a sad and drab little house with little to commend it save its view and the small stream that tumbled down the hill on the western march of its land. It was from this stream that the house took its name.

  It stood in the heart of Archie’s estate, on the face of the hill that sloped up from the village, and access was by the Croy back drive and then a rutted track overgrown with thistles and fenced by sagging posts and broken barbed wire.

  The garden, such as it was, lay on the slope to the south of the house. This too was surrounded by rotting posts and straggling wire, and consisted of a small drying-green, a weedy vegetable patch, and dismal evidences of hen-keeping — leaning wooden sheds, much wire-netting, and nettles grown waist-high.

  The house was built of dull-coloured stone, with a grey-tiled roof and maroon paintwork in a sad state of repair. Concrete stairs led up from the garden to the front door, and inside were small and lightless rooms, hideous peeling wallpaper, the smell of damp, and the persistent drip of some faulty tap.

  In fact, so unattractive was the entire property that Edmund Aird, viewing it for the first time, strongly recommended that his mother should abandon the idea of ever living there and start to look for somewhere else.

  But Violet, for reasons of her own, liked the house. It had stood empty for some years, which accounted for its dereliction, but despite the mould and the gloom, it had a pleasant feel to it. And it had that little burn within its lands, tumbling away down the hill. And, as well, the view. Inspecting the house, Violet would pause from time to time to glance out, rubbing a clear space on the dusty glass of the windows, seeing the village below, the river, the glen, the distant hills. She would never find another house with such a view. The view and the burn seduced her, and she disregarded her son’s advice.

  Doing it all up had been tremendous fun. It had taken six months to complete the work, and during that time Violet — politely spurning Edmund’s invitation to remain at Balnaid until such time as she could move into her new abode — camped in a caravan that she had rented from a tourist park a few miles up the glen. She had never lived in a caravan before, but the idea had always appealed to her gypsy instincts and she leapt at the chance. The caravan was parked at the back of the house, along with the concrete mixers and barrows and shovels and daunting piles of rubble, and from the open door she could keep an eye on the workmen, and dash out to have a word with the long-suffering architect the moment she spied his car come bumping up the road. For the first month or two of this cheerfully vagabond existence, it was summer, and the only hazards were the midges and a leaky roof whenever it rained. But when the winter gales blew, the caravan trembled beneath their blast and rocked unsteadily at its temporary mooring, not unlike a small boat in a storm. Violet found this quite exciting and relished the dark and gusty nights. She could lie in her bunk, which was far too short and too narrow for such a sizy lady, listening to the keening wind and watching the clouds racing across the cold, moonlit skies.

  But she did not spend all her time alternately bullying and cajoling the builders. To Violet, a garden was even more important than a house. Before the workmen had started in on their labours, she had already engaged a man with a tractor, who tore up all the old fence posts and broken wire. In their place she planted a beech hedge on either side of her driveway and all around her small plot of land. After ten years, this was still not high, but thick and firm, always leafy, and so providing good shelter for birds.

  Within this hedge, she planted trees. To the east, conifers. Not her favourites, but quick-growing and good for keeping the worst of the coldest wind at bay. On the west, overhanging the stream, grew gnarled elder, willows, and double white cherries. At the foot of the garden she had kept her planting low, in order to conserve the view. Azaleas grew there, and potentillas, with drifts of spring bulbs in the rough grass.

  There were two curving flower-beds, one herbaceous and one filled with roses, and between them a good-sized lawn. This was on the slope and tricky to cut. Violet had bought an electric lawnmower, but Edmund — interfering again — decided that she was likely to sever the flex and so electrocute herself, and had engaged the services of Willy Snoddy to come once a week and do the job for her. Violet knew perfectly well that Willy was a great deal less competent than she herself at handling complicated equipment, but she went along with the arrangement as being the line of least resistance. Every now and then Willy, being laid low with a killing hangover, did not turn up, and then Violet, quite happily and efficiently, cut the grass herself.

  But she did not tell Edmund that she had done so.

  As for the house, that she had transformed, turning it back-to-front and opening out all the poky and ill-proportioned rooms. Now the main entrance stood to the north and the old front door had become a glassed garden door, opening straight out of her sitting room. The concrete stairs she had demolished, and in their place stood a semi-circular flight of steps built of old stone sa
lvaged from a fallen dyke. Aubretia and scented thyme grew from crannies between these rocks and smelled delicious when one trod upon them.

  After some consideration, Violet decided that she could not bear the dull colour of the stone walls of Pennyburn, and so had them all harled and painted white. Windows and doorways were outlined in black, which gave the face of the house a crisp and down-to-earth appearance. To embellish it, she had planted a wisteria, but, after ten years, it had scarcely grown as high as her shoulder. By the time it reached the roof, she would probably be dead.

  At seventy-seven one was perhaps better off sticking to hardy annuals.

  All that was missing was a conservatory. The one at Balnaid had been built at the same time as the house. Its erection was due to the insistence of Violet’s mother, Lady Primrose Akenside, a woman not addicted to the great outdoors. It was Lady Primrose’s opinion that, if forced to live in the wilds of Scotland, a conservatory was absolutely essential. Quite apart from the fact that it was useful for keeping the house supplied with pot plants and grapes, it was somewhere to sit when the sun shone and yet the wind blew with an edge like ice to it. Such days, everybody knew, occurred with amazing frequency during the winter and spring and autumn months. But Lady Primrose spent a good deal of the summers in her conservatory as well, entertaining her friends and playing bridge.

  Violet had loved the Balnaid conservatory for less social reasons, relishing the warmth, the peace, the smell of damp earth and ferns and freesias. When the weather was too inclement to garden, you could always potter about in the conservatory, and what better place to sit down after lunch and try to do the Times crossword?