A Small Death in the Great Glen (10 page)

Chiara was shivering-white-cold furious, every word she enunciated in rapier-sharp, rapid sentences. “Anything else you forgot to tell me?” Her black eyes bored into him. “To protect me?”

Her father stood silent, head bowed, like a wee boy about to get the strap. The comfortable, well-proportioned sitting room of the Corelli family home, curtains drawn against the chill autumn night and fire ablaze in the large hearth, was often the setting for heated family discussions. Family fights were unknown. Arms windmilling, voices raised, heated discussions about important things such as pasta, the color to paint the chip shop or gelato versus ice cream were the most this family ever argued about.

“
Cara.
Please, we try to do what is for the best.” Her tiny aunt stood in the doorway, hands wrestling with invisible knitting, trying to support her brother.

“Oh really? Well, it didn't work. And, Aunty Lita, I can't believe that you too hid this from me.” She stared at her. “Peter was hiding a DP, a displaced person, who is on the run from the police. But none of you told me. You thought I should be protected like a little princess. That is such an insult. What next? Oh yes, you forget to tell me my future husband is in prison. Yes, yes”—she held up her hands to ward off the excuses—“I know he's out on bail now. And I have to hear from Joanne that he was arrested. Do you know how that made me feel?” Especially, she thought, since I always lecture
her
about trust in a marriage.

Her father called out when he heard the front door opening.

“
Cara,
where are you going?”

“Out.” And the door slammed.

“What's wrong?” Chiara stood shivering on the doorstep like a bedraggled little bird, lost in a storm.

Joanne tried to steer Chiara into the kitchen, but the girls were pulling her by the hand in the opposite direction.

“I've had a big fight with my father about Peter and—”

Joanne shook her head imperceptibly and gestured with her eyes toward Annie, who had immediately latched on to their conversation.

“Later,” she mouthed.

“Play with us, Aunty Chiara,” Jean pleaded.

“We're about to have mince and tatties, Scottish haute cuisine. Join us.”

Chiara smiled at Joanne's feeble joke.

“And Bill's out late so we can have a good blether.”

She knew Chiara didn't like Bill. But then he too had made it clear he had no time for “turncoat” Italians. And she had no idea where Bill was tonight. When he was home he was monosyllabic. Joanne put it down to guilt. And more and more, especially when he'd been drinking, he'd spend the night in his workshop. So he said. The business had problems; that much she had been able to twist out of him. But her husband didn't believe in a woman knowing a man's business.

“It's no him. It's the drink.” Granny Ross always had an excuse for her son.

“That's the Scottish national anthem,” was Joanne's retort.

The girls had had their story and were now in bed. A wind was up, rattling the last of the leaves from the rowans. The two friends sat each side of the fire talking quietly, on their third cup of tea.

“What really gets me is that I thought they—Peter, Papa, Aunty Lita—were all doing secret wedding stuff. They were keeping a secret, all right—a secret missing Polish seaman. My own family, my fiancé, didn't trust me. They did it to protect me, didn't want to worry me, they said.”

“That was wrong.” Joanne knew the feeling of being shut out.

“Aiding an illegal, something like that, that's what he's charged with. Peter was seen crossing the canal bridge, heading north, with the sailor in his car. The idiot! This could affect Peter's business badly, our business too. I know some in the town still think of Italians as cowards, turncoats, traitors—that's a mild way of putting it. I've heard much worse. We're not responsible for what happened in the war, I was a child! Papa suffered! My mother was killed.” Chiara was becoming more agitated. “And so many Italians who were born here, been here for ages, were interned in camps—just for being Italian, for being on the wrong side.”

Joanne didn't know what to say. She knew the sentiments of people in wartime. Prejudice had nothing to do with being rational.

“I'm going to tell Peter I can't marry him.”

“Chiara! You can't. You love him.”

“I love him to bits but if we don't trust each other, there can be no marriage.”

There was nothing Joanne could say. It was too raw a subject for her.

The fire had burned down to a deep devil red. From the wireless in the corner, the round plummy voice of the BBC announcer introduced Mahler's second symphony. The opening chords began, the music a salve for raw emotion. Slowly, surely, as the adagio led into the opening movements, Joanne opened up.

“I've never known real trust,” she began quietly. “It's not the way Bill sees a marriage. He tells me what he thinks I need to
know, no more. He doesn't share, doesn't talk, he provides for his family, that is what men do, but talk? Discuss things? Share his thoughts? I think that only happens in films and books, and even then, you have to be a foreigner. No Scottish man would talk ever about his dreams, tell you he loves you …”

“Except Rabbie Burns.”

“Aye, Rabbie. Goodness, would you not want to marry him?” They both laughed.

“Even though we had to get married in a registry office,” Joanne continued, “the ‘love, honor and obey,' especially the ‘obey,' is how Bill thinks it should be. As for love, well, he does love me in his own way. Honor, I don't think he's ever wondered what that means.”

Chiara sat silent, slightly uncomfortable at the intimacy of the conversation, but knowing Joanne needed to talk to someone.

“You probably guessed, but yes, we ‘had to' get married. We barely knew each other. End of the war, a handsome soldier laddie swept me off my feet. I brought complete disgrace to my family. My father literally barred me from his door, very dramatic it was, biblical, well, he
is
a minister, and he has never spoken to me since … nor my mother.” She shook her head and forced a smile. “I wonder how many war brides have the same story. After all that death, we were avid for life, for a new start. We were intoxicated by our survival when so many …” Her throat started to close up. “Another cup of tea, that's what we need.” She rose abruptly.

It was the last thing Chiara needed, but she was used to the Scottish custom of endless cups of tea in every situation.

Settled back in her chair, Joanne determined to be more cheerful.

“I saw Margaret McLean today, she told me that Annie has a game of ringing doorbells and running away.”

“That's my girl.” Chiara smiled.

“I'd be too scared. I was a right goody-goody, a true daughter of the manse.”

“Me too. All Italian girls are supposed to be princesses.”

“When I was little I thought God was my grandfather. My father called him ‘our Father' when he preached his sermons. But my mother used God to threaten me. You know; He was watching, He knew when I hadn't tidied my room, knew what a naughty girl I was, all that kind o' thing. I suppose I was lonely, my sisters being much older than me, but I had books, books were my escape. When I first read
Jane Eyre,
I used to fantasize that my mother was like Mrs. Rochester and that my real mother would one day appear.”

“And you wonder where Annie got her imagination from.”

“This time it's Wee Jean with the fantasies, some nonsense about the wee soul Jamie, the boy that drowned, being taken away by a hoodie crow.”

Chiara stared at her.

“It's a horrible big black bird that eats carrion and waits around at lambing time for the carcasses of dead and sometimes not so dead lambs.”

“Euch!” Chiara shuddered. “Children have great imaginations; they need to explain the things that scare them. A crow, that's a new one. But this wee boy drowning, so terrible for the parents, the family.”

“Aye. It doesn't bear thinking about.”

Angus and Margaret McLean were sitting quietly together over their ritual evening G&T. Rob had wine, a taste he had acquired when on exchange holidays with French family friends. He was desperate to ask questions, knew that his father rarely expressed an opinion and wouldn't speculate nor ever break a
client's confidence. Rob and his mother knew none of those restraints.

”My, my,” said Margaret. “A fine mess.”

“Peter did give assistance to the man, a person the police wanted to interview, the procurator fiscal can't ignore that,” her husband gently pointed out.

“Maybe Peter didn't know the police wanted him when he helped the man,” Rob offered.

“Ignorance is no excuse in law. And please remember, you're a reporter. You investigate. You report. And you inform the police if need be. It's not your job to play detective.”

“Don McLean is always telling me the same thing. I'd like to find this sailor, though. A great story.”

“We all would. For Peter Kowalski's sake.” Angus McLean looked thoughtful. “The police will have checked the trains and roads and of course boats. This man can't have vanished. If you believe he is up the glens, why don't you go to Beauly? Ask Dr. Matheson if he has anyone on his list who would notice unusual goings-on in the glens. You know country people; no one can walk across a field without someone seeing them. You never know.” An afterthought struck him. “Dr. Matheson knows Mr. Stuart, the head gamekeeper up Cannich way. There's not much escapes his eye. What with his precious pheasants and stags and the salmon, he's always on the lookout for poachers. He would spot a stranger, if that's where this Polish man is.”

“Thanks, Dad, I might just do that. It's worth a try anyhow.”

“I also seem to remember,” Angus went on, “the old ghillie, this one's father, he knew Peter from when they were building the dam. They played together.”

“Football?”

“No,” laughed his father, “the fiddle. Though in Peter's case it would be the violin. A good player, I'm told. Classically trained.
I recall them playing at one or two dances at the Spa Pavilion in Strathpeffer. Peter was far too good of course, but they rattled off a fine jig.”

Margaret agreed. “Yes, that was fun, wasn't it, Angus?”

Rob could never imagine his father having fun. Enjoying himself, yes. But fun? Still, it was a good lead and the prospect of being out and about on his bike appealed to him.

“Thanks, Dad, I'll give Dr. Matheson a call right now.”

“Give him our regards,” Margaret called after him as Rob left to use the phone in the hall. She turned to her husband. “You do know something.”

“Only one thing for certain. Peter Kowalski is a good man. Inspector Tompson needs someone to charge, makes him look competent. The police here have the added problem of searching in Ross-shire, in a different jurisdiction. Peter's a foreigner. For some, that means he must have done something. So, this arrest is opportune.”