September

  The Ladies’ was on the far side of the foyer, but the man had paused at the reception desk. He had taken off his hat and was shaking the rain from it.

  “Yes?” The receptionist was a sulky-looking girl, with fat pink lips and frizzy straw-coloured hair.

  “Good evening. I have a room booked. I called about a week ago, from London.”

  An American. His voice husky but lightly pitched. Something about it caught Virginia’s attention, as though a hand had tugged at her sleeve. Halfway across the floor, she paused to glance at him. Saw a tall, broad-shouldered backview, dark hair streaked with grey.

  “What name did you say?”

  “I didn’t, but it’s Conrad Tucker.”

  “Oh, yes. If you’d like to sign here…”

  Virginia said, “Conrad.”

  Startled, he swung round to face her. Across the space that divided them, they stared at each other. Conrad Tucker. Older, going grey. But Conrad. The same heavy horn-rimmed spectacles, the same indelible tan. For a second his expression remained blank, then slowly, incredulously, he smiled.

  “Virginia.”

  “I don’t believe this…”

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned.”

  “I thought I recognised your voice.”

  “What are you doing here…?”

  The boot-faced girl was not amused. “Excuse me, sir, but would you mind signing?”

  “I live near here.”

  “I never knew…”

  “And you…?”

  “I’m staying…”

  “And how will you be paying, sir?” Boot-face again. “By credit card or cheque?”

  “Look,” said Conrad to Virginia, “this is hopeless. Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you in the bar and we’ll have a drink. Can you do that? Have you time?”

  “Yes, I have time.”

  “I’ll get settled, wash up, and then join you. How’s that?”

  “Five minutes.”

  “No more.”

  The ladies’ room, frilled and chintzy, was mercifully empty. Virginia had shed her grotty old Barbour, been to the loo, and now stood at the mirror gazing at her own reflection, and feeling more disorientated than ever by the astonishing unexpectedness of her encounter with Conrad. Conrad Tucker, not seen nor thought of for twelve years or more. Here, in Relkirk. Come from London, and for what reason she could not imagine. She only knew that she had never been so glad to see a known face, because now, at least, she had someone to talk to.

  She was not dressed for socialising, defiant in blue jeans and an old grey cashmere sweater with a muffler of a collar. Her appearance was scarcely better. Hair lank with rain, her face clean of make-up. She saw the lines on her forehead and at the corners of her mouth, and the dark bruises beneath her eyes, evidence of her sleepless night. She reached for her bag, found a comb, fixed her hair, fastened it back from her face with an elastic band.

  Conrad Tucker.

  Twelve years. She had been twenty-one. So long ago, and so much, since, had taken place, that it took some effort to recall the details of that particular summer. They had met at the country club in Leesport. Conrad was a lawyer, in business in New York with his uncle. He had an apartment in the East Fifties, but his father owned an old house in Southampton, and Conrad had come from there to Leesport to play in some tennis championships.

  So far, so good. How had he played? That was lost in the mists of time. Virginia simply remembered that she had watched the match and cheered for him, and afterwards he had sought her out and bought her a drink, which was exactly what she had intended should happen.

  She searched in her bag, in vain, for a lipstick, but found scent and splashed it on.

  It had been a good summer. Conrad turned up in Leesport most weekends, and there were midnight barbecues and clambakes on the Fire Island beach. They played a lot of tennis, sailed Gramps’ old sloop out on to the blue waters of the Bay. She remembered Saturday nights at the club, and dancing with Conrad on the wide terrace with the sky full of stars and the band playing ‘The Look of Love’.

  Once, mid-week, she had driven up to the city with her grandmother, to stay at the Colony Club, do a bit of shopping, and take in a show. And Conrad had phoned, and taken her out to dinner at Les Pléiades, and after that they had gone on to the Café Carlyle and stayed until the small hours listening to Bobby Short.

  Twelve years. Light years ago. She picked up her bag and her Barbour and went out of the room and up the stairs and into the bar. Conrad had not yet reappeared. She bought herself a whisky and soda, a packet of cigarettes, and carried her drink to an empty table in the corner of the room.

  She drank half the whisky at a single go, felt at once warmed, comforted, and marginally stronger. The day was not yet over, but at least she was being offered a little respite, and she wasn’t alone any longer.

  She said, “You start, Conrad.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because before I say a single word, I have to know what you’re doing here. What has brought you to Scotland, to Relkirk? There has to be some logical explanation, but I can’t think what it is.”

  He smiled. “I’m not in fact doing anything. I’m on a long vacation. Not exactly a sabbatical, just an extended break.”

  “Are you still a lawyer in New York?”

  “I am.”

  “Working with your uncle?”

  “No. I’m the top of the heap now.”

  “How impressive. Go on.”

  “Well…I’ve been away about six weeks. Travelling England, staying with various acquaintances. Somerset, Berkshire, London. Then I came north and I’ve been in Kelso for a few days with some distant cousins of my mother’s. It’s a great place. Great fishing. Left them after lunch today. Caught the train up here.”

  “How long are you staying in Relkirk?”

  “Just tonight. Tomorrow morning I’m hiring a car, and driving on north. I have to go to a party.”

  “And where is the party?”

  “Some place called Corriehill. But I’m staying at another house called Croy. With —”

  “I know,” Virginia interrupted. “Archie and Isobel Balmerino.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they’re our closest friends. We all live in the same village, Strathcroy. And…you know Katy Steynton?”

  “I met her in London.”

  “You’re the Sad American.” Virginia said this without thinking and could at once have bitten out her tongue.

  “Sorry?”

  “No, Conrad. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that nobody could remember your name. That’s why I didn’t know it was you who was coming.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “We had lunch with the Balmerinos on Sunday. Isobel told me about you then.”

  Conrad shook his head. “I knew you’d married and I knew you’d married a Scotsman, but no more than that. I never imagined we’d meet up like this.”

  “Well, here I am, Mrs Edmund Aird.” At least I think I am. She hesitated. “Conrad, I didn’t mean to say that. The Sad American bit, I mean. It’s just that Isobel didn’t seem to know anything about you. Except that Katy had met you in London. And that your wife had died.”

  Conrad was holding his whisky tumbler. He turned it in his hand, watching the amber liquid swirl. After a bit he said, “Yes. That’s right.”

  “I am so very sorry.”

  He looked up at her. He said, “Yes.”

  “Can I ask? What happened?”

  “She had leukaemia. She was ill for a long time. That’s why I came over. After the funeral.”

  “What was she called?”

  “Mary.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “A daughter. Emily. She’s six. Right now she’s with my mother in Southampton.”

  “Getting away…has that made things better for you?”

&nbs
p; “I’ll know when I get back.”

  “When are you going?”

  “Next week some time.” He tossed back the last of his drink, got to his feet. “I’ll get us the other half.”

  She watched him as he stood at the bar, ordering and paying for their second round of drinks, and tried to work out why he was so unmistakably American, when he didn’t actually chew gum or sport a crew cut. Perhaps it was his shape, the broad shoulders, narrow hips, long legs. Or his clothes. Polished loafers, chinos, a Brooks Brothers shirt, a blue Shetland sweater discreetly tagged with the Ralph Lauren logo.

  She heard him ask the barman for some nuts. He did this quietly and politely, and the barman found a packet and emptied them into a little dish, and Virginia remembered that Conrad seldom raised his voice and was always mannerly to any person who happened to be doing a job for him. Gas-station attendants, barmen, waiters, cab drivers, doormen. The old black odd-job man who carried the trash and did all the dirty jobs down at the Leesport anchorage was much taken with Conrad, because Conrad had gone to the trouble to find out his Christian name, which was Clement, and always addressed him thus.

  A kindly man. She thought about his dead wife, and was certain that the marriage must have been a happy one, and was angry for him. Why did tragedy always aim its venom at the couples who least deserved it, while others were spared to make each other miserable and everybody else as well? Seven years. It wasn’t very long. But at least he had his little daughter. She thought of Henry, and was glad that he had a child.

  He was coming back to their table. She put a smile on her face. The whiskies looked very dark. She said, “I only meant to have one drink. I’m driving.”

  “How far?”

  “About twenty miles.”

  “Do you want to call your husband?”

  “He’s not at home. He’s in New York. He works for Sandford Cubben. I don’t know if that got through to you on the grapevine or not.”

  “I think I did know. How about your family?”

  “If by family you mean kids, there’s no family at home either. I have one child, a little boy, and I have just, this very afternoon, abandoned him to start his first term at boarding school. That is how I have spent this ghastly day. The most awful day of my life. That’s why I came in here. To go to the john and gather up my courage before travelling on.” Even to herself, she sounded truculent.

  “How old is your boy?”

  “Eight.”

  “Oh, God!” His voice was despairing, which Virginia found comforting. Here at last was a twin soul, someone who thought the way she thought.

  “He’s just a baby. I never wanted him to go, and I fought every inch of the way. But his father was adamant. It’s tradition. Good old British stiff-upper-lip tradition. He thinks it’s the right thing to do, and he was all set to take Henry himself. But then he had to go to New York. So it had to be me. I don’t know which of us was most miserable, Henry or myself. I don’t know which of us I feel most sorry for.”

  “Was Henry okay? Being left, I mean. Saying goodbye.”

  “Conrad, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. It was the fastest turn-round you could imagine. Split-second timing. Not a moment to stand, no time for a tear. I’d hardly stopped the car before two burly chaps were there, opening the back door and manhandling all the luggage on to trolleys. And then the Matron…quite young and quite pretty…took Henry by the arm and led him indoors. I don’t think he even looked back. I was standing there with my mouth open, all set to have a scene, and suddenly the headmaster appeared from nowhere, shook me by the hand and said, ‘Goodbye, Mrs Aird.’ So I got back into the car and drove away. Do you know something? I felt like a dead chicken on a conveyor belt. Do you think I should have asserted myself?”

  “No, I don’t. I think you did the right thing.”

  “Nothing could have made it any better.” She sighed, drank whisky, set down the glass. “At least neither of us had the chance to disgrace ourselves.”

  “I guess that’s what it’s all about.” He smiled. “But you could still do with a bit of cheering. So why don’t we have dinner together?”

  “…I never thought I’d live in Scotland. To me it was a place one came to at the end of the summer for a bit of jollity and the odd hunt ball or two; but never somewhere one would spend the rest of one’s life…”

  The King’s Hotel was not famous for its food, but it was warm and friendly, and the darkness and the streaming rain out of doors offered no inducement to tramp the windy streets in search of some place a little more sophisticated. They had already eaten their Scotch broth, and were now ploughing their way through steaks, onions, chips, and mixed veg. For pudding, there was a choice of trifle or various ices. The waitress had already told them that the trifle was ‘offly guid’.

  Conrad had ordered wine, which was perhaps a mistake, and Virginia was drinking it, which was a bigger one, because she didn’t usually talk as much as this, and, for the life of her, she couldn’t think how to stop. Even if she’d wanted to. Because Conrad was a sympathetic listener, and so far had not started to look bored. On the contrary, he seemed to be fascinated.

  She had already explained about Edmund, and his first wife, and Vi and Alexa. She had told him about Henry, about Balnaid, about the almost indescribable remoteness, and yet closeness, of their existence in Strathcroy.

  “What goes on there?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s just a little place on the way to somewhere else. And yet everything. You know how small communities are. And we have a pub and a school, and shops, and two churches, and a dear queer who sells antiques. There always seems to be something going on. A jumble sale, or a garden opening, or a school play.” It sounded dreadfully dull. She said, “It sounds dreadfully dull.”

  “Not a bit. Who lives there?”

  “The village people, and the Balmerinos, and the minister and his wife, and the rector and his wife, and the Airds. Archie Balmerino is the Laird, which means that he owns the village and thousands of acres of land. Croy is enormous, but he’s not in the least grand, and neither is Isobel. Isobel works harder than any woman I know, which is saying something in Scotland because all the women beaver away endlessly. If they’re not running huge houses, or bringing up children, or gardening, then they’re organising enormous charity events or engaged in some home industry or other. Like running farm shops and selling all their own produce, or drying flowers, or keeping bees, or restoring antiques, or making the most beautiful curtains for people.”

  “Don’t they ever have fun?”

  “Yes, they have fun, but it’s not Long Island fun, and it’s not even Devon fun. In August and September, everything comes to a rising boil and there’s a party most nights, and hunt balls and shooting and things. You’ve come at the right time, Conrad, though you’d never believe it on a dismal evening like this. But then the winter closes in and everybody hibernates.”

  “How do you see your girlfriends?”

  “I don’t know.” She tried to work this one out. “It’s not like anywhere else. We all live such miles apart, and there’s no club life. I mean, there aren’t country clubs like there are in the States. And pubs aren’t the same as they are in the south. Women don’t really go into pubs. There are golf clubs, of course, but those are mostly male-orientated, and women are strictly personae non gratae. You might go to Relkirk and meet a girlfriend there, but most of the socialising is done in people’s private houses. Lunch parties for the girls, and dinner parties for the couples. We all get dressed up, and like I said, drive for forty miles or more. Which is one of the reasons that life more or less stops during the winter. That’s when people escape. They go to Jamaica, if they can afford it, or Val-d’Isère for the skiing.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “I don’t mind the winters. I hate the wet summers, but the winters are beautiful. And I go skiing up the glen. There’s a ski-area only about ten miles on from Strathcroy, with a couple of tows and some go
od runs. The only thing is that if there’s a lot of snow you can’t get up the road. Which rather defeats the purpose.”

  “You used to ride.”

  “I used to hunt. For me, that was the whole purpose of riding. When I first came to Balnaid, Edmund said I could keep a couple of horses, but there didn’t seem any point if there was to be no hunting.”

  “So how do you fill your days?”

  “So far,” she told him, “I’ve filled them with Henry.” She gazed at Conrad, in glum hopelessness, across the table, because he had nailed with a single question the sum total of all her apprehension. Henry was gone, torn from her against her will. You smother him, Edmund had told her, and she had been furiously hurt and angry, but the smothering and the mothering had been her daily occupation and her greatest joy.

  Bereft of Henry, there was only Edmund.

  But Edmund was in New York, and if he wasn’t in New York, then he was in Frankfurt or Tokyo or Hong Kong. Before, she had coped with these long separations, partly because there had always been Henry for comfort and companionship, but also because she had been totally confident, wherever he might be, in Edmund’s strength and constancy and love.

  But now…the doubts and dreadful possibilities of last night’s waking nightmares crowded in on her again. Lottie Carstairs, that madwoman…but perhaps not so mad…telling Virginia things that she had never thought to hear. Edmund and Pandora Blair. Why do you think he’s taken himself off to America? He’ll make a fool of you, same as he did his first wife, poor lady.

  Suddenly, it was all too much.

  To her horror, she felt her mouth tremble, her eyes prick with tears. Across the table, Conrad watched her, and for a mad instant she thought about confiding in him, spilling out all the anguish of her miserable uncertainties. But then the tears swam into her eyes and his face dissolved into a watery mist, and Virginia thought, oh, bugger, I’m pissed. Just in time. The moment mercifully was over, and the dangerous temptation behind her. She must never speak about it to anybody, because if she did, then the words, said aloud, might make it all true. Might make it happen.