A Double Death on the Black Isle (6 page)

Joanne stared at the weathered, brown faces; the flattened-down hair that held the indentation from seldom removed caps; and it dawned on her that she did indeed know these men.

Patricia turned. “Darling.” She rushed forward to the oldest of the three. “You should be inside. It's unlucky to see the bride before the wedding.” But laughing, she took his hand. “Come and meet my best friend and matron of honor—Joanne Ross.”

Smirking, his hand held out, he said, “Pleased to meet you at long last. I've heard a lot about you.” His hand enveloped hers, squeezing her hand until Joanne almost cried out in pain, all the while staring, daring her to speak out, taking his revenge. She could read it in his eyes: “That's for humiliating me.” Another quick squeeze and she was sure her wedding ring had broken the skin: “That's for kicking me.”

“How do you do,” Joanne gasped, staring straight into the eyes of the skipper of the herring boat.

“This is ma' friends.”

The two crewmen stepped forward. Looking sheepish, they touched their foreheads with a cocked forefinger. Patricia noticed nothing, dizzy with emotion—part elation, part fear, and a mercifully mild bout of the usual morning sickness. The clock
chimed ten. The meager group gathered at the foot of the registry office stairway.

“This is it, then.” Sandy offered his arm to his bride. “At long last.”

Joanne followed. At the top of the steps he turned to her. “Fancy that eh . . . me marrying into the Ord Mackenzie clan.” Then he winked.

As he turned to go into the registry office, Joanne had a sudden sickening premonition that this was not going to work out, and that this would happen sooner rather than later.

J
oanne would later recall that weekend in small episodes. Like a film director, she would try to organize the memories, but they refused to fall into chronological sequence—a fragment of farce alternating with a scene of excruciating embarrassment, moments of real pleasure ending in sharp pain, the pain that only families can inflict on one another. And Joanne felt herself clearly, vividly, hovering above, looking down on those scenes; she saw herself, lips tight together, waiting on tenterhooks for the next revelation, the next disaster, the next episode in the drama.

The friends walked in the woods, primroses and wood aconite and wild garlic carpeting the mossy banks along the swift-flowing burn, the girls with small bags of salt “to shake on rabbits' tails,” Patricia had explained. It was an old joke, but a good one, and even though Annie saw through it she played along for her sister's sake.

The girls went riding, Annie going solo, Wee Jean happy to be led on the fat pony. In the afternoon, gathering driftwood and shells on the beach at Rosemarkie, Joanne and Patricia chatted about anything other than the subject foremost in their minds while the children ran to and fro between the breaking waves and the women, anxious for a small phrase of praise for each shell, each treasure gathered from the tide-line. Across the firth, the ramparts of Fort George loomed grey and sinister, a fitting backdrop. When the day ended, both women—and to a lesser degree
Annie—were glad that not one word had been said about Patricia's wedding, nor of Patricia's new husband.

On the Saturday evening, Mrs. Ord Mackenzie insisted on the torture of dinner in the high-ceilinged, long, dim, and echoing dining room of the Georgian mansion. The table setting was formal, with enough linen, dishes, glasses, and silver cutlery to sate the appetite of any burglar. The temperature was that of a seldom-used room. The atmosphere matched.

Mr. Ord Mackenzie sat at the head of the table, his wife on one side and his daughter on the other. Annie and Wee Jean were down from Patricia, and Joanne sat a safe gap from Janet Ord Mackenzie. The remaining six yards of table was empty. Joanne prayed that the girls would not disgrace her.

Great Expectations,
that's what it feels like
, Joanne thought.

“More vegetables, Joanne?”

“Would you pass the mustard, Daddy?”

“The primroses are everywhere this year. So bonnie.”

The conventional questions were asked: Joanne's health and welfare and her parents' health, even though Mrs. Ord Mackenzie knew that Joanne was excommunicated.

Patricia and Joanne were just at the point of self-congratulations on an ordeal endured when Wee Jean, in all her innocence, ignited the touch paper.

“Aunty Patricia, can we go to the shops sometime? I want to get some sweeties with the half-a-crown your friend gave me.”

“And what friend is that?” asked Mrs. Ord Mackenzie.

Wee Jean was scared of Mr. Ord Mackenzie. His coat, his knickerbockers, his shambling slow shape, his moustache, and the hair coming out of his ears made her think he was made entirely from tweed. But his wife—her skeletal body, her silent walk, her grey hair so immaculate Jean was sure Mrs. Ord
Mackenzie took it off at night—terrified the child. She suspected the woman was a ghost, so all the cajoling, bribery, and warnings to stay silent were forgotten, so mesmerized was the girl at being spoken to directly.

“The friend Aunty Patricia married.”

The sharp intake of breath from Joanne and Aunty Patricia's fork clattering onto a plate started the tears.

“I don't mind his name.” She started to cry. “I'm sorry.”

“Patricia!” Mrs. Ord Mackenzie elongated the name into three syllables, the final “a” roared as loud and as fiercesome as a battle cry at Culloden.

Wee Jean's tears turned to sobs. Annie, sitting beside her, took her wee sister's hand.

“Excuse us,” Joanne stood, “I must take the children to bed. It's been a long day.”

“I'll help.” Patricia stood, holding on to the dining table to steady herself. “Mother, Daddy, we'll talk in the drawing room later.” Shoulders squared, she led the miserable troop from the room.

Her father watched in bewilderment.

“What was that? Who's married?”

It took a while to settle the girls. Joanne read Wee Jean three stories and Patricia read a chapter of
Anne of Green Gables
to Annie.

“Isn't too grown-up for you?” Patricia asked. But no, it was currently Annie's favorite.

When they were walking down to the drawing room, Joanne brushed against her friend and was surprised to feel her trembling.

“I don't feel up to this, but it has to be faced sometime,” Patricia whispered. “I'm so glad you're with me.”

“Let's pretend we're being summoned to the headmistress's room for late homework,” Joanne suggested.

“Far more serious than that,” Patricia said, “more like being caught with a boy in the rhododendron bushes.”

They were still smiling as they entered the room.

“Mummy, Daddy,” Patricia started in a bright kindergarten schoolteacher placating a difficult parent voice, “can I pour you another drink?” She held up the decanter. “No? Well, Joanne and I will have a wee dram.” She poured two healthy slugs then sat on the sofa as outwardly calm as Mary Queen of Scots awaiting her execution.

“On Thursday morning, I married Alexander Skinner,” Patricia announced.

“You are getting married?” Her father beamed at her. “Jolly good.”

“I presume you are pregnant,” her mother said.

“He is a fisherman,” Patricia continued. “From the Black Isle . . .”

“A fisherman?” her father asked. “I must look out the salmon rods. Been a while since I've had a spot of fishing.”

“Penniless no doubt,” her mother commented.

“On the contrary, Mother, he has his own boat. . . .”

That shocked Joanne.
Sandy hasn't told her
.

“You will meet him on Easter Monday,” Patricia told them.

“Jolly good,” said her father.

“You always were a stubborn, difficult, and not particularly bright child,” Mrs. Ord Mackenzie said. “But this is completely unacceptable. I will consult our solicitor. I will not have a common fisherman marrying into my family.”

“Too late for that now,” Patricia told her.

Mrs. Ord Mackenzie stood. The conversation was over. As she passed by without saying goodnight, Joanne could have
sworn she felt an icy draft in the woman's wake.
Don't be silly
, she told herself,
you've been reading too many faerie tales to the children
. But she felt herself shiver nonetheless.

“Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?” Joanne smiled at Patricia.

“Just wait. Mother will make my life miserable one way or another,” came the reply.

“Well, well, will you look at this?” Fraser flapped a copy of the
Gazette
at his mother, but didn't bother to rise from his chair. “See,” he said, “the boat that was burnt to nothing,
The
Good Shepphard
, it belongs to Miss Stuck-Up's fancy man.”

“Let me have that.” Mrs. Munro grabbed the newspaper out of her son's hands and stared at the front page.

“I was reading that.” Fraser stared in surprise at his mother, but she was out the kitchen door, with the newspaper, before he could react.

She squeezed past packing boxes lining the hallway. She was out of the farmhouse and into the kitchen of Achnafern Grange, sitting at the kitchen table, one ear cocked for the sound of footsteps, reading the front page of the
Gazette,
leaving Fraser to wonder what on earth was going on.

Mrs. Munro read the whole article, twice over, fearing, not for the first time, what her dear lass Patricia had got herself into.

Joanne too had been thinking about the
Gazette
. She was desperate to see a copy. But that would have meant asking Patricia for a lift into the village. She would have to wait until Tuesday. Don often quipped that today's newspaper is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapping. He was right, there was something very sad about old newspapers.

The distant chattering from the girls as they helped Patricia
sort through her childhood collection of books, ready for the move to the farmhouse, made her smile. Annie would choose so many of Patricia's discards it would be hard carrying them home. Wee Jean was thrilled when Patricia gave her five dolls.

“No,” she assured them, patting her tummy, “I won't be needing them. This is a boy.”

Joanne walked through the house into the kitchen.

“Can I help with anything, Mrs. Munro?”

Mrs. Munro gave a start. She was so completely engrossed in the newspaper, she didn't have time to hide it.

“Is that the
Gazette
? I was so rushed on Thursday morning I didn't pick up a copy. May I see?”

Joanne took the paper, stared at the front page and understood only too well why Mrs. Munro looked nervous. The picture of Sandy Skinner, although in profile, was clear and distinct. In the background, the image of his boat, flames shooting skyward, looked spectacular. But the visceral pleasure in seeing her first assignment as a journalist, there, on the front page, overwhelmed her.

“This looks great!” Joanne exclaimed. “I wrote this, you know. It's my first real story.” She looked at Mrs. Munro. Mrs. Munro was looking over Joanne's shoulder.

“Let me have a look.” Patricia was by her side in a flash. “You clever thing. You, a journalist, who'd have thought it? Goodness, is that my Sandy? It is. Goodness! What's this?” Patricia skimmed the story. “Joanne! Why didn't you tell me?”

Why didn't Sandy tell you, more's the point?
But Joanne didn't say that. Instead, she muttered, “I'll explain all I know—which is only what is in here,” she tapped the newspaper and thought,
why couldn't I get to read this on my own and enjoy my wee moment of glory?

Sunday morning was taken up with church. Joanne and the girls joined the Ord Mackenzie family, neighbors, and tenants in the Easter service. Afterwards, the congregation milled around on the church steps, on the path through the graveyard, murmuring greetings, shaking hands, catching up with the news, the gossip, women examining one another's new Easter bonnets, men predicting the weather.