Beneath the Abbey Wall (15 page)

And Mrs. Ross was not happy that once more her family was the subject of gossip, especially from the likes of Mrs. Ishbel Cruickshank, her informant and rival in the best flower display for their church stakes.

*  *  *  

Earlier that morning, well before anyone else was in, Joanne had phoned her friend Chiara from the office.

“Are you going to band rehearsal this afternoon?”

For Chiara, who worked evenings in the family chip shop and café and was six months pregnant, half past eight on a Saturday morning was early.

“I'm only half awake and you're asking about band practice? What's the real reason for the phone call?” Chiara was yawning and muttering in Italian to someone—not her husband, Peter, who spoke only English and German and Polish and French; probably her aunt Lita.

“I thought I might go along to hear how the boys are improving.”

“Joanne, it's me, your best friend . . . ”

“Can't hide anything from you, can I? Neil Stewart is
going to sit in, he plays mouth organ, or ‘blues harp,' as Rob calls it.”

“In that case, I'll be there. I want to meet this mysterious stranger. Pity I'm pregnant, I might have taken him for one of my many lovers—me being Italian.”

Joanne was still laughing when McAllister came in. One look at the tiredness exuding from every part of him stopped her.

“Sorry, that was Chiara . . . ”

“Don't apologize. We could do with some good cheer in this office.”

“How's Don doing?”

“Angus McLean is seeing him this morning, an official visit. And so far, we can only get permission for me to see Don.” He was looking at her as though he wanted to say more but couldn't think what.

“Right, I'll see you on Monday morning.”

With that he was gone, and Joanne knew there was nothing she could do to help McAllister. Unless he asked. She knew that, him being a clichéd strong silent Scotsman, he was unlikely, or unable, to ask. Perhaps, at another time, she might have confronted him, made him talk, share his pain. But she was distracted. Neil's voice, as he greeted Betsy Buchanan, and Betsy's answering twitter, were echoing up the stairwell.

“I'm only here for a minute,” Neil told Joanne as he stood in the doorway, his hat pushed slightly back, an expensive-looking briefcase, the type solicitors usually carried, in one hand. “I'm off to the library archives. What time and where do we meet for the practice?”

“Four thirty,” Rob answered as he squeezed past Neil. “The scout hut opposite the Royal Academy playing fields.”

“I'm none the wiser,” Neil said.

“Not one of the dirty-old-man brigade who watch hockey practice then.” Rob laughed. “I'll pick you up.”

“Good, here's my address in town.” Neil scribbled on the back of a business card.

Rob looked at Neil's card with his address in Canada, his title, and qualifications. “Wow, an associate professor.”

“Full professor if I get my PhD. Talking of which, I have work to do and must dash.”

“I'll pick you up around quarter past four. You can hold my guitar for me.”

When Neil was safely down the stairs, Joanne made a grab for the card. “Let me see that.”

“Please!” Rob held the card high. “And why so interested? Because you fancy him?” He saw her blush, one of the many things he loved about his friend; an almost-middle-aged woman—to him, anyway—a mother of two, and she still blushed. “You do. You do. You fancy Neil.” He said this in a singsong eight-year-old-in-the-playground voice, elongating “Nee-il” into two syllables.

Joanne ignored him. She was looking at the card proclaiming Neil Stewart's title, the crow-black print, the weight of the stock, giving him a status she had not considered before now.

“He's . . . ”
Far and away beyond me,
she was thinking.

“He's been to New York and he's here in town for only a wee while, and I intend to pick his brains about the big wide world beyond the Grampians.” Rob was relieved to be having a cheerful conversation. “Maybe he'll know some new numbers for the band.”

“I'm sure he will.” Joanne was sure Neil knew a lot about many things, how to treat a woman included.

*  *  *  

“Come on, let's sit outside for a minute, I can't hear myself think.” Chiara led Joanne to the grassy bank outside the hall.
They sat on her coat, taking in the last of the diminishing sun. The sound of the band counting in the seventh—or was it the eighth—version of “Roll Over Beethoven,” was faint but clear, sounding as though they were playing inside a box, which was all the Scout Hall was, a large wooden box with a tin roof.

“That Neil makes a big difference to their sound,” Chiara said.

“He does,” Joanne agreed.

“He's certainly enjoying himself, and enjoying the adoring looks from the audience.”

It took Joanne a moment to realize Chiara was talking about her. “Chiara, I was only listening to the music.” But she started to laugh when her friend pursed her lips and shook her head as if to say,
Who are you kidding?

“He's gorgeous, he's talented, he's a mysterious stranger . . . fatal.” When Chiara saw her friend's faraway eyes, a sensation that no good would come of any involvement with Neil Stewart made her shiver. The sun falling behind the hills, late-afternoon dampness gathering, added to her chill.

“Let's go back.” Chiara stood. As they walked up the track to the door of the hall, she looked up at her much taller friend. “I hope you're not falling for Neil.” There was recklessness in her friend that few saw—except Chiara.
Never been anywhere, or seen anything—sheltered upbringing, domineering father, an unlucky encounter with a man just back from the war who couldn't believe he was alive . . .
That was Chiara's explanation.

“Don't be silly,” Joanne was too quick to protest. “He's great fun, good to be around, and he's leaving in two months.”

“Aye. Just don't forget it.”

Rehearsal came to a stop. It was obvious everyone had enjoyed themselves.

“I have to run,” Chiara said. “I'm helping Papa out in the
chip shop. Let's hope the home team has won; there's nothing worse than a disgruntled lot of football supporters on a Saturday night.”

Peter Kowalski, Chiara's husband, held open the door for his wife as solicitously as a prince escorting his princess. Joanne knew this was not because Chiara was pregnant—it was how Peter always treated his wife. And in another life, his life before the war, he was not a prince but a Polish count.

Rob and the drummer were packing up. Neil jumped down from the stage. “That's what I like about my part, all I have is this.” He held up a harmonica, removed a box from his pocket, and stowed it away. “So, Mrs. Ross, plans for the evening?”

“I'm not sure . . . ”

“Good, because I was wondering if we could find this mysterious Jenny McPhee. I'd really like to meet her. I've come to the part on my history where the input of a tinker—sorry, Traveler, would be invaluable. And I hear Mrs. McPhee is a legendary storyteller as well as singer.”

“Well . . . ” Joanne had a good idea where to find Jenny early on a Saturday night—if she was in town, that is, but she worried that if Clachnacuddin had been playing at home, and if they had lost, which was not unusual, the bar near the ferry, which the McPhees frequented, was not a good place to be.

“Where are you two off to?” Rob intervened.

“I was asking Joanne how I might meet Jenny McPhee,” Neil replied.

“We could check the bar down the ferry,” Rob suggested.

“I thought of that, but aren't Clach supporters a bit wild?” Joanne was nervous of drunk men, singly or en masse.

“Clach are playing away”—Rob laughed at her—“there is no way I'd be down there on a Saturday otherwise. Tell you what; why don't you two get the bus and I'll meet you there in say an
hour? I want to get my guitar home.” He stroked his Fender Stratocaster.

“Great.” Joanne had to force a smile; the fantasy of Saturday night alone with Neil had all but vanished.

*  *  *  

Despite there being no legal documents to prove it, there had always been rumors that the Ferry Inn was owned by Jenny McPhee or perhaps her son Jimmy. Whoever owned it was not big on interior decorating. On the outside, iron bars, spaced to give the solid unadorned building a resemblance to a prison, protected the windows. Inside, the floor was scattered with sawdust, and the brass rail around the foot of the bar was green, sticky and stained with what could have been corrosion but was most likely dried blood.

Rob had left his bike at home, borrowed his father's car, and parked it a good half mile nearer town.

“I'm meeting Joanne and Neil,” he had said when his father asked where he was off to.

The possibility of the car disappearing from outside the Ferry Inn made him lie, indirectly, to his parents about his destination. Even in their circle, the Ferry Inn was synonymous with riots, stabbings, and the after-hours lock-up where patrons were supposedly guests of the publican, not men breaking the licensing laws.

Jenny McPhee had arrived back in town that afternoon, her thinking done. Or at least that was what she told Jimmy. Her real reason for coming back was that the damp was getting into her bones, and she knew autumn (which was really early winter in these parts) was coming to an end—not a good time to be on the open road.

She was in the tiny room at the back of the bar that served women and those too afraid to join the mêlée out front. Sitting
at a table, hat resplendent with grouse feathers, she was looking as though she was about to conduct a séance, waiting for the spirits of the dead to come through, although the only spirit likely to be found would be in a bottle of The Glenlivet.

“Here comes the young Pretender,” Jenny announced when Rob walked in, Neil and Joanne following behind.

Rob bowed. As he expected, Jenny told him, “Mine's a Glenlivet, a double.”

“Let me get it,” Neil offered, and Rob did not refuse. “And you?”

“A shandy.”

“Me too,” Joanne said.

Seeing the look on Neil's face, Rob explained, “I'm driving.” He did not feel like having the usual discussion about why he did not have a beer with whisky chaser habit.

“Mrs. McPhee,” Neil started when they had settled around the table, sitting close, as this was the only way to hear one another over the noise from the public bar, “I'm interested in the folk tales of the Traveling people.”

“Are you now?” Jenny took a good draught of the dram, smacking her lips in an exaggeration of an old crone, before sitting back and staring into the depths of Neil Stewart. Taking her time, she asked the Highland greeting, “So tell me, Mr. Neil Stewart, who are your people?”

Rob grinned and nudged Joanne before sitting back in his chair to enjoy the contest. His family, the McLeans, were originally from the Isles, and he knew the “who are your people” question. He knew that when and if Neil could establish his credentials, Jenny McPhee might, just might, consider telling him whatever she thought Neil needed to know. Or not.

“My mother was from Sutherland. She died three years ago,”
Neil started. “She was a widow when she emigrated to Canada. I never knew my father.” He did not tell Jenny that after his mother's death, he had had months of anger, fear, shock, even the edges of a light insanity that had blurred his thinking in the time after he had buried her in Canada, not her beloved Scotland, where she had always wanted to die. And that week, the week when she lay dying, she had told him.

I have tried to be a good mother,
she had said, and he had assured her over and over that she was the best mother anyone could wish for. And after two or three of these conversations, and his constant reassurance, she told him,
I'm no' the woman who gave birth to you. You were someone else's bairn.

I'm your son, you're my real mother, nothing else is important,
he had assured her, stroking her hair, which was still dark and thick although no longer shining. He had no further explanation; she went into a coma. It was as though she had emptied her body and soul and had no more to tell.

As the years passed, he had admired his mother even more for bringing him to Canada, hiding the truth of his birth, saving him from a childhood of being a bastard child.

“So, you're a Stewart frae Sutherland.” Jenny was staring intently at him as though memorizing the map of his face. “That's no' a load o' help, the place is hooching wi' Stewarts.”

Rob did not know if Joanne or Neil noticed, but Jenny could speak a Scottish version of the Queen's English as well as most. So why was she slipping into the vernacular?

“She told me she was born in Strath Oykel.”

“That's a long glen, that one.”

“I have a picture of her, taken before she left Scotland.”

The snapshot was about two and a half inches by three; the color less sepia than dirty ivory, and whoever had taken it did
not have a steady hand. In the foreground was a smiling woman wearing a tightly belted coat and a head scarf. Not much of her hair was visible, and her smile showed no teeth, just a nervousness at having her picture taken.

“My mother told me this was taken before she left.”

“Oh aye?” Jenny McPhee was doing her best to look disinterested but her body seemed stiff, on alert, waiting for a blow to strike.

“See, there in the background.” Neil pointed to the faint smudge of an odd twin-peaked mountain lurking on the horizon. “That's the mountain called Suilven. The Sugar Loaf, she sometimes called it.”

“Is it now?” Jenny handed him back the picture. She made no mention of the Travelers' caravans just discernible in the far corner of the photograph, but she surely saw them.