A Small Death in the Great Glen (49 page)

That same night, across the river, in his own bed again, McAllister was sleeping the sleep of the completely exhausted. Angus McLean had visited and stayed briefly, conversation being limited. The solicitor had brought books, magazines and week-old English newspapers. The London papers were full of politics. The Suez Canal continued to dominate the news. The books included one gem, the new Evelyn Waugh. The magazines brought a vivid variety of writing, especially the
Spectator.

His incapacity in the speech department had reminded him of his true skill—writing. He started after Mr. McLean had left and remembered how much he enjoyed it. I should write more, he thought. A short story, maybe a color piece for a magazine; this is the twilight of the Celtic race, surely I should be recording
the demise of an ancient culture. Keith McPhee has his Scottish history and stories of the Traveling people, I could record the ordinary, the people who still live as they have for generations, never going anywhere, except to war, lives and language and the land unchanged until now; they are the keepers of the lore. Nineteen fifty-six, the winds of change have reached us, he thought, we'll not be able to shelter from them.

He reached for the em rule, laid the large sheets of paper out on the dining table and started to lay out his ideas for a new dummy for the
Gazette.
Local news first of course, two columns of national headline stories, features and in-depth articles, op-ed and letters and the Godspot, a section for women readers, a nature column maybe, the classifieds, then sport on the back three pages.

He penciled in ideas, made lists in the margins, New Year, a new paper—maybe. A
Highland Gazette
fit for the second half of the twentieth century. He hummed a discordant version of “Coming Through the Rye,” another favorite Rabbie Burns song. Finishing up, he looked over his work and pronounced, “This is going to be exciting.”

Under the layers of eiderdown, drifting off, wisps of thoughts, like mist on a peat bog, floated images of Joanne through his whisky sleep; Joanne frowning over the typewriter, Joanne pedaling her bike against the gale, Joanne laughing and mock-fighting with Rob, and a bruised and subdued Joanne limping up the stairs to work. But the image of her sitting quietly, lost in a daydream, with a half smile, and her humming a tune, that was what accompanied him into his own dreaming.

Rob always fell asleep instantly. A thought flitted around as he got ready for bed. What was Ann trying to tell him? He turned out the bedside lamp, pulled the blankets up to his nose. The faint
smell of smoke that he had noticed as he put away his motorbike was still there. Was it coming from next door? Can't be. He turned over. There it was, definitely. An odd smell—burning wool? Singeing blankets? He'd investigate. In the morning. And he was asleep.

T
WENTY-ONE
 
 

Rob ran into Gino, literally, outside the station bookstall.

“Sorry, Mr. Corelli. I didn't see you.” It was on the tip of his tongue to say because you're so short. But he didn't. “I was looking for you, I wanted to ask you about the convoy.”

“Convoy? What is a convoy?”

Rob explained.

“I don't know nothing about no convoy.” Gino was puzzled. “Maybe you mean about our friends from all over Scotland, and some from England, driving up for the wedding.
Sí?
And some, the older ones, they come by the train, that's why I'm here. You come to my house later,
sí
?”

“
Sí.
I mean, aye, I will.”

Rob saw a story in this, and the offer of coffee he would never refuse. In a tea-drinking nation, coffee was a novelty, real coffee a rarity. Rob had had to learn to like the stuff. It was part of his self-education to become a sophisticated man of the world like McAllister.

When he arrived at the Corelli household the final, final finishing touches to the wedding dress were being made. This time, it was the veil that needed adjusting.

“To match the necklace,” Chiara said.

“What necklace?” Rob asked. But no explanation was given.

Gino was glad to see Rob. “Come into the kitchen, I'm making the coffee.” The fuss over—to him minor—details was exhausting. He thought the dress looked perfect five fittings ago. He was also exhausted by the logistics of accommodating such
a large group of wedding guests. Weeks had been spent sorting out hotels and boardinghouses. He had to make sure the landladies understood that locking up for the night, indeed locking the guests out, at nine in the evening would not be acceptable.

“This is a good Christian household, Mr. Corelli. The doors are locked at nine o'clock sharp. No exceptions. No, no keys are available,” more than one landlady had declared. That eliminated those particular guesthouses. A no alcohol sign in the foyer eliminated others. Gino was shocked to find that some landladies were reluctant to take children. Accommodation was found in the string of boardinghouses along the riverbank for most of the guests; the rest would cram into Gino and Lita's house. Gino poured another coffee.

“Rob, my boy, maybe you can help me, you and your motorbike. Maybe you make a convoy,
sí
?”

Rob agreed, even before he knew what he was agreeing to.

“Many guests, they drive here. I tell them to meet you in Nairn,
sí
?”

“Nairn?”

“Aye. They rendezvous for lunch. At the Napoli, my friend's chip shop.”

“Best fish and chips in the north. Excepting yours, of course,” Rob added quickly.

“That's a right. Mine's is the best. You go, no?”

“
Sí.”

As he was about to turn onto the bridge to go back to the
Gazette,
he remembered he had forgotten to investigate the smell of smoke from the house next door. “Later.” He revved the engine to get up the hill, sending a flock of seagulls screeching skyward.

Next day, Rob wheeled his bike out of the shed to a bright blue sky with not a cloud and only the scent of frost to cause concern. Snow still lay on the hills and the mountains but the town was dry.

“It's a brilliant day for a bike ride.” Margaret tucked in his scarf and kissed his cheek. “I do like a man in a leather jacket.”

“Marlon Brando's got nothing on me,” Rob yelled back, then opened up the throttle.

Once clear of the town, the road ran parallel to the railway line for most of the way to Nairn. A flat straight seven-mile stretch was interrupted only by a level crossing. The temptation to speed was too great for a young man with a big red motorbike; the Triumph fairly flew. Glorious winter sunshine so bright that it hurt the retinas and dry, still cold made for a very short journey. It was a small, prosperous merchant farming town. A substantial area of Victorian and Edwardian houses, complete with a park and bandstand, enhanced the air of prosperity. On the southern end, a fishing village settled on the river mouth. The Nairn, a clean gentle river, ran down from mountains and moors, waylaid by a distillery and fishermen, and could be added straight into a glass of whisky. Across a wooden bridge was a particularly windswept golf course that followed the clean white sands of a beach that stretched mile upon mile along the shores of the firth and what seemed like mile upon mile out into the firth at low tide. When the sea retreated, the water was barely visible from the high sand dunes. And as long as you didn't mind the biting North Sea winds, and the Presbyterian Sabbath, this was a fine wee town.

The fish-and-chip shop and ice cream parlor stood opposite the high harbor wall in a converted tackle shed. It opened only on weekends at this time of year. In summer it did a roaring trade with day-trippers and holidaymakers staying in one of the many boardinghouses or at the town campsite. Now the only crowds were flocks of marauding seagulls.

Turning off the main road Rob wound his way through narrow streets lined with whitewashed fisher cottages that opened
directly onto the pavements. As he came into the cobbled square, he stared at the corral of multicolored vehicles. He hadn't expected so many. Across the river, he spotted yet more vans all lined in a row. Fish-and-chip vans—seven, no, he counted again; eight. With the serving sides closed, and no smoke pouring from the chimneys and without their omnipresent smell, they could have had the forlorn look of a deserted funfair, but the fluttering bunting more than compensated. The brightly painted ice-cream vans, at least a dozen of them in every variety of color, diminished the northern winter. From a charabanc hung red, green and white flags at every window. Along the sides ran the emblem of the Scottish-Italian Friendship Club, Glasgow chapter. Cars, from smart saloons to Ford Prefects and Morris Traveler estates and old jalopies, were flying more Italian flags and at least one Saltire.

“Would you look at thon!” marveled a local, pushing his flat cap back in astonishment. “I haven't seen that many Eyeties since Sicily.”

Inside the café, outside the café, seated on the seawall, were Italians; old women in black; young women flouncing by in pairs, their floating dirndl skirts filled out by layers of paper-nylon petticoats, waists cinched in by broad patent leather belts. Like prancing show ponies they tossed their pageboy haircuts in the wind. Others held on to beehives of teased and lacquered hair-dos, shrieking at every gust that threatened to collapse the startlingly high edifices. Old men in gaiters all seemed to have bandy legs; young men in tight trousers all seemed descended from storks. Children darted in and out, under and through, winter swallows gathering sweeties and lollipops and pieces of salami. The adults kept talking, with only an occasional swat with the back of the hand being necessary to calm an overexcited child.

Rob walked into the café and introduced himself. He was
welcomed by a small round woman in a white apron over a black dress, with olives for eyes and hair in a bun pulled so tight she could have been mistaken for a person of Asiatic lineage.

“Gino told me about you. A fine young man, he says. You must be hungry after the drive. Sit down over here.”

“I'll not say no.” Rob was always hungry.

“We've no fish and chips. You'll have to eat the same as us.”

“Anything's fine, thanks.”

She reappeared with an enormous white ashette, heaped high with hams, salamis, sausage, cheeses, pickled vegetables, fish, olives and dried tomatoes. A plate of bread and coffee was placed in front of him with waved instructions to “eat, eat.”

“Bianca?” the woman shouted to the back of the café. The waitress—or was it her daughter—came over with the cutlery. A sweet smile and a shy hello were all it took. Rob was smitten.

“Thanks—Bianca, is it?”

She smiled.

“Are you coming to the wedding?”

“Of course. She's a bridesmaid,” her proud mother told him.

A shrill whistle stopped further conversation. Laughing, shouting, in Italian of course, the milling groups gradually formed a semblance of order. Rob bolted the last of the food and went to get the bike.