A Small Death in the Great Glen (22 page)

All this did not go down well with Bill.

“But tell me,” she started up again, “tell me about the wee boy that drowned and thon Polish sailor, you being in the know and all. How could he do that? Kill a bairn? Mind you, them foreigners—”

Bill raised his arm in an exaggerated arc and looked at his watch. “We haven't time to sit around and gossip.”

“Gossip? Me gossip? I don't know anything about anything. I'm no one to gossip.”

“But I thought you said Grieg—”

“Thought's a fine thing. I've said nothing. Nothing at all. Look now, there's a wee gap in the weather. See? Best take advantage of it. It's a long drive back and it'll be dark by four thirty. Nice to meet you. Cheery-bye.”

Before they could get a word in, they were out the door, out on the pavement, in the fine misty rain. Joanne looked at Bill and rolled her eyes before making her way back to the van.

The fine mist and rain made visibility poor. As they slowly followed the road south along the sea loch, the peaks of the Five
Sisters were only a memory, a mark on the map. After about fifteen miles a painted sign appeared at the bottom of a rough track. Lurid pink and silver salmon were leaping over the lettering that proclaimed
Rowan Lodge.
And in the space of a few minutes the mist evaporated, the sun shot through the breaks between clouds, the mountains appeared again to take up their usual positions as a backdrop and there on a small rise perched a building. It looked painted onto the landscape. With 360-degree views to the sea, the islands, the mountains behind and beyond, the size of the construction made Bill whistle.

“Some lodge!” Joanne too, was awed.

They drove up and parked. The long two-story building, with a grand entrance and reception rooms plumb in the middle, was in local stone with a slate roof. A grand stone terrace big enough to turf over for a bowling green was almost finished. Sounds of hammering on stone and wood echoed around the grandiose foyer and up the elaborate wooden staircase.

A painter, previously contracted to Bill's project, was varnishing the wood paneling that covered the lower part of the walls. No doubt his colleagues were around. At least the workman had the decency to look shamefaced.

Bill walked around the building site, taking his time, estimating the square feet of it, checking everything. And running his hand over the oak banisters, admiring the hand-forged railings, estimating the amount of slate and of stone, noting the expanse of glass and stained glass windows fit for a cathedral, and gilt-framed paintings of stags at bay or highland cattle, Bill was all the while making a mental calculation on the cost of the project. And when he reached the conservative side of a breathtaking total he knew he had been outfoxed. Yet in some part of him, he was full of admiration for the gall of the man. And jealous.

Their journey home was quiet. Through the light of an almost full moon, the final stretch, before the road descended to the east coast, had the added danger of wandering sheep suddenly appearing in the middle of the road. Broken walls of deserted crofts showed up as dark shadows on the hillsides. During the Clearances, this drovers' route from the west came to be known as Desolation Road, the evicted and often starving clansmen herded to the emigrant ships or to the poorhouse. The very rocks of the drove roads had witnessed and retained the sorrow of the desperate human exodus, sending the Highlanders to form diasporas in Canada and America and New Zealand and Glasgow, Joanne remembered, and the stories, the history and the mountain ridges seemed to press in on the passing van. Bill too felt the weight of the day, but he put it down to the weather.

On the final miles along the shore back into town, Joanne insisted on calling in to Bill's parents to kiss the girls good night. But they were asleep.

“How was the trip?” Grandad Ross asked as she came into the sitting room.

“Grand, but the weather was winter one minute and summer the next.”

“I'll put the kettle on.” Granny Ross put her knitting aside and rose.

“I'd love to but Bill's waiting.”

“He's outside?” Grandad Ross was not happy. “Well, if he can't be bothered coming in to see his own mother and father, he'll just have to wait.”

“He's tired after the long drive.” She was too tired to come up with the usual elaborate excuses for her husband.

“He needs a good talking-to, that son of mine.”

“How were the girls? Did they behave?”

“Wee angels they were.”

Granny Ross rolled her eyes at this.

“Saturday matinee, Wee Jean wanted to go home early,” Grandad told her, “frightened by the big boys shouting.” The sound of her shrieks still echoed around in his head. “Mind you, the film
was
a bit scary and she has such an imagination.”

“That's more Annie's trouble than Jean's.” Joanne laughed.

She managed to extricate herself after five minutes, knowing that Bill would be furious at being kept waiting but even more furious at his own cowardice, his own shame whenever he had to face his father. His mother might forgive him anything, but his father saw everything.

“See you in the morning at church. Night.” She shivered, pulled her coat tight against the cold and walked down the path to her husband and a decision. Standing at the front door, the sight of his son's van annoyed Grandad Ross yet again. We've all been through some things that don't bear thinking about, he thought, we all have had to put behind us the death of friends, the horror of the past; there are two generations of us with memories we have to live with, it's no excuse, he thought, fuming.

“George, shut the door, there's a terrible draft,” Granny Ross called out from the sitting room.

That son of mine, I despair of him, he thought as he took a last look at the Milky Way. He admired Joanne, a grand lass, he told everyone. But something was not right in their household, he knew that. He also knew to hold his tongue. Look out for the girls, he told himself, that's all I can do. Then, for the thousandth time, the memory of the morning's outing to the cinema came back to plague him.

Grandad Ross was a practical man. He worked at the iron foundry, a good steady job. After surviving the First World War all he had wanted he now had—a quiet life, a shed and a bicycle. His escapes
were the weekly trips to the library to satisfy his unquenchable thirst for cowboy books—Westerns was the only section he ever visited—and a regular outing to a film at any of the three cinemas in town that were showing Westerns, especially John Wayne films. His idea of America was in shades of red and yellow. Not like the Highlands, where he pictured everything in shades of gray and brown and green with occasional flashes of brightness breaking through.

The Saturday-morning children's matinee at the Palace he enjoyed as much as his granddaughters did. Probably more than Wee Jean, he acknowledged; she found it intimidating but loved going anywhere with her grandad. The Lone Ranger was his favorite, followed by Zorro, the Masked Avenger. He liked Charlie Chaplin but loved Buster Keaton. The adventure serial made especially for children he didn't mind but he couldn't abide
Lassie.
Not that he would ever say so—it was Wee Jean's favorite.

This Saturday morning it was the usual bedlam. The front rows below the screen was a no-go area; a seething tangle of wrestling boys lit by the ghostly flickering of the black-and-white film on a worthy topic, or a topic of interest to adults and girls, they ignored, waiting for the action to resume. At a distance they seemed indistinguishable from a freshly landed catch of giant squid.

The noise, like the keening of a storm at sea, made it difficult to hear the dialogue. The entrance of a well-known character, particularly a baddie, made the noise swell to hurricane force. Banging the seats up and down in time to the cowboys chasing the Indians, screaming out to a character to “mind yer back” or “kill him dead” or yelling “eeugh” when the hero smiled at the heroine, all swelled the racket loud enough to be heard across the river.

Running, scampering, scuttling like rats in a pack, up and down the aisles, dodging the outstretched arms of the usherettes,
the boys would make a break for the toilets in small groups, off to sneak a fag bought in packets of five or to open the safety doors to let in their chums who didn't have the sixpence to get in. But first they had to evade the clutches of the manager as he patrolled the aisles. An ex–military policeman, he was nicknamed Ping after the Elastic Man, but he was Elastic Man with a moustache and a terrifying sergeant-major bellow, which he used at close range to yell right into the eardrum of any boy whom he managed to snare. His ability to reach out and trap a boy by an arm, an ear or the elastic of their shorts was legendary. In the town, he was known as a nice man. He gave a generous discount to members of the British Legion, showed popular, not-quite-first-release films, with good old-fashioned British war films a specialty. Parents liked him too. The sixpence it cost to be rid of their children, particularly on dreich winter Saturdays, was money well spent.

The girls, they were altogether another story. The older ones, around twelve or thirteen, Annie watched with envy. She memorized the moves; the flick of the hair, the smoothing down of the starched-petticoat-full skirts, the sashay up or down the aisles guessing, no,
knowing,
that when
she
reached that age, she would never quite make it into a clique. At nine she just
knew
she had that hidden mark, that unquantifiable air about her that made her not quite right to join in, to belong. Arm in arm, two by two, went the girls sneaking a look to make sure of an audience, floating down the aisles, off to the toilets, never alone, as being best friends meant coordinating your bladder clock, and there they would meet up with other best-friend couples, to then stand in front of the big smoked brown mirrors, to practice blowing bubblegum. They had not yet reached an age where they were clever enough to talk about other girls. But their silence toward someone outside their group was just as eloquent.

This Saturday morning seemed more subdued than usual.
Grandad left Wee Jean in her sister's care, told them he was going out to the foyer to rest his ears, promised to bring back some sweeties, and while he had the chance, he had a sly cigarette. Two puffs later, the heavy swing doors flew open, letting out a blast of noise and an anxious usherette. The doors opened out a second time. Annie emerged dragging a shaking Wee Jean, who was mewling like a sackful of kittens sensing the river.

“The hoodie crow! It'll get us. The hoodie crow. I saw it!”

Annie was shaking her sister, hissing in her ear, “Don't tell! Don't say anything! Don't!”

Seeing her grandad, the little girl ran to him, clutched him around the legs, taking great big gulps of air between sobs and heartbreaking, keening wails.

“There, there.” Grandad did his best. “There, there, ma wee pet.” Wee Jean was exhausted with fear. Her cries were now hiccoughing sobs. “Grandad, Grandad.”

The usherette hovered helplessly flapping her hands. “It's all right, dear, it's just a fillum.”

“Sorry 'bout that,” Grandad apologized.

“Not at all. She's a bit too young, that's all.”

Annie said nothing. But she was as white as Zorro was dark. That was the villain of the piece, that was who had set her sister off, Zorro.

They walked out to a darkening sky and a darkening river.

“We'll get an ice cream. But don't tell your granny. Ice cream is a Sunday treat.”

“But can we still have ice cream tomorrow?” Jean managed to get out.

“Of course. But mind … sssh!” He held a finger to his lips. “Our secret.”

Grandad Ross, a grandchild's hand in each of his, crossed the main road to the café.

“What was that all about?” he muttered, furious at himself for leaving the child. His wife was right, his stories of hoodie crows and trows and witches and faeries
were
too frightening for wee ones. His favorite rhyme, “At the Back o' Bennachie,” sung with great gusto, was about a mother who had lost her two sons.

What was he thinking of, he asked himself. He knew Jean had not been herself, nor Annie, both of them had been subdued, nervy as spooked horses when they sensed the Indians surrounding the corral. They had been like this ever since their wee friend, the wee boy, Jamie wasn't it, since he had drowned. And again, Jean was harping on about a blasted hoodie crow. All his fault.

“Grandad, it was nothing.” Annie looked up at him. “Really. It was just Zorro, in his mask and all. It scared her.” She didn't mention that it had scared the life out of her too. She too saw what her sister saw—the hoodie crow.

And when they reached the other side of the road they saw that the café was closed, firmly shuttered; the usually bright happy corner of light and cheer and ice cream was as dark as the rest of the day.