Bird of Passage (38 page)

‘It’s alright,’ he said again. ‘I’m not going anywhere, I promise! But do you think we could have some coffee? I could really do with a cup of coffee.’

‘I’ll get Heather to make some. She’s in the kitchen.’

‘Heather?’

‘She helps out around the house.’

‘Jesus, Kirsty, how times have changed. You have servants now. Other than me, I mean.’

‘Not servants. No. She’s a housekeeper. Nick does a lot of entertaining. And you were never a servant.’

‘No, I was the brownie wasn’t I? Working for love.’

‘This is a big house. Nick works from home a lot. She just helps.’

He had wrong footed her. She went into the kitchen, asked Heather to bring in a tray of coffee, and went back to the conservatory, half expecting to find that he had disappeared. But he was still there, pacing up and down, gazing out of the windows at the garden. They sat down on opposite sides of the table.

‘Nice room,’ he said, but his eyes were focussed on hers. ‘I was never in here before.’

She was fighting every hungry inclination of her body. She wanted to rush at him and embrace him. She couldn’t think of anything to say to him. Or perhaps she could think of so much that she hardly knew where to begin. She just sat there, looking at him, twisting her fingers in her lap, torn between her dreadful fear of losing him again and her equal fear of what his presence might mean.

‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ she said. ‘I’ll wake up tomorrow and think it’s all been a dream.’

‘It’s not a dream.’

‘But you’re only here for the day. You’re going away again?’

‘Only for a little while. Just to sort things out.’

‘And the house? What are you going to do with the house?’

I’m planning to live there. What else? Maybe even farm in a small way. I’ve bought enough of the land to make that possible. And I’ve got some consultancy work.’

‘What kind of consultancy?’

‘Engineering. Don’t look so surprised. You can change your whole life around in twelve years, if you’re single minded. And I
was
single minded, Kirsty. But I made a discovery about myself as well.’

‘What?’

‘That I’m quite bright.’

‘I always told you you were.’

‘You and your grandfather both.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘To Glasgow at first. I managed to get a job and some qualifications. And then I got a grant and a university place to do engineering. I’ve even worked in the USA. I saved quite a lot. I had very little to spend my money on. But now I’ve got the compensation money as well, I can afford to waste a bit of time on a smallholding.’

 ‘Most of the stock has gone.’

 ‘It’s alright. We’ll start again. I’m in no hurry about this, Kirsty.’

Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my God, my grandad!’ She started to laugh. ‘He’s waiting to meet the new owner. You didn’t tell him, did you? He isn’t keeping your secrets as well?’

‘No. I thought he might let it slip. To Nicolas. Do you think he’ll be pleased?’

‘When he gets over the shock, he will.’

‘We’ll go up there when we’ve had our coffee. But you’d better phone him and warn him who you’re bringing.’

‘The shock of just seeing you would kill him. It almost killed me, Finn! But what will I say to him?’

‘Well, there’s something else. And I want your grandfather to know before your husband does.’

‘What?’ she asked, but he just shook his head

‘We’ll talk about it at Dunshee.’

Helplessly, she leant forward and seized his hand again. ‘Oh Finn !’

At that moment, Heather came in, carrying a tray of coffee and cakes. If she was shocked to see Kirsty, hand in hand with the visitor, she remained remarkably composed. She was new to the island and had never met Finn before. Kirsty sprang away, blushing furiously.

‘This is Finn O’Malley,’ she said. ‘He’s the new owner of Dunshee, but we’re old friends. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was Finn who had bought it!’

‘That’ll have been a nice surprise for you.’

‘It’s a lovely surprise. We haven’t seen each other for years.’

Heather smiled at Finn in a professional manner, put the tray down on the table, and left them to their coffee. But Kirsty felt as though there was something in the air of the room that certainly hadn’t been there before. Finn had brought it with him, like a cold wind blowing in from the sea.

While he sat in silence, drinking strong black coffee, Kirsty phoned her grandfather.

‘I thought you’d be here by now,’ he said, plaintively.

‘There’s been a delay.’

‘Did he miss the ferry?’

‘No. No he’s here alright. And we’ll be coming up soon. But – I don’t quite know how to tell you this, grandad. It’s somebody you know.’

‘What are you talking about, Kirsty?’

‘The person who bought Dunshee. You know him. You know him very well.’

‘I don’t know anyone with that amount of cash. If I did I would have touched him for a bob or two long ago.’

‘You do. He just doesn’t want you to get a shock when you see him.’

‘Are you having me on, Kirsty?’

‘No. No, I’m serious.’

‘Well come on lass. Who the hell is it?’

Finn gestured to her to give him the phone. She handed it over.

‘Hello there, Mr Galbreath,’ said Finn. ‘Alasdair. It’s me.’

There was a very long pause. Then Finn said ‘Yes. Yes. I know. I’ll be with you in a little while. Yes. She’ll bring me up. I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.’ He hung up the phone. ‘We should go.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Kirsty.

Finn grinned. ‘He said, “Are you the bloody bum that walked out on me?” But I think he wants to see me. We’d better go.’       

It was when they were up at Dunshee, that Finn dropped his second bombshell. He had left the bike at Ealachan and they had driven together in near silence, Kirsty at the wheel with Finn beside her. She was acutely conscious of his proximity, wanting to reach out and touch him all the time.

Like Kirsty, Alasdair couldn’t hide his delight at the sight of the prodigal returned.

 ‘Oh lad, lad,’ he kept saying, ‘It does my heart good to see you. I know I should be angry, but you don’t know how good it is to see you again.’

Finn sat down beside the kitchen range, stretching out his long legs in front of him.

‘Well,’ he said, and although he was talking to Alasdair, he was actually looking at Kirsty. ‘The thing is, I was wondering if you might just like to stay put, Alasdair.’

‘Stay put?’

‘Why should you move?’ asked Finn. ‘This was always your home. Did you really think I would come along and ask you to move out of it?’

He cast a look at Kirsty that was both malicious and amused.

‘Are you sure about this, Finn?’ asked Kirsty.

‘Of course I’m sure. We lived together for enough years. Nobody was ever as kind to me as you, Alasdair. Nobody. I’m sure we could live together again. What do you say?’

‘And I don’t have to move anything? Not my furniture?’

‘Not a stick of it. Nor yet your sheep, nor the chickens, nor the dog.’

‘Then I’ll stay. But I don’t know how I can ever begin to thank you, lad.’

‘You don’t have to thank me. I have more than enough to thank
you
for. I’ll be in your debt till the end of my days.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

‘That’s settled then,’ said Finn.  He glanced at Kirsty. ‘But there’s one condition.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You have to leave the picture for me, Kirsty. I love the picture. The one of the farm among the flowers.’

‘Of course. I did it for my grandad anyway. But what am I going to tell Nick about all this?’

‘What does it have to do with him?’ asked Alasdair.

‘He has a house all ready for you, Grandad.’

‘So you want me to move down there, do you?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘It won’t go to waste. He can use it for something else now, can’t he? Find himself another tenant. Use it as a holiday cottage.’

‘But I don’t know how I’m going to tell him. He’ll think I knew. He’s going to think I knew all about this, and didn’t tell him.’

‘Didn’t you?’ asked her grandfather.

‘I thought some publicity-shy celebrity had bought it.’

Finn was enjoying her discomfiture. Sometimes, as the transaction progressed, he had wondered what the hell he was doing, and why. Now, he put his hands behind his head and leant back on the familiar sofa, watching her. ‘Ah God, God,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you how good it is to be home again!’

Nicolas was very angry. Kirsty had never before seen anyone incandescent with rage, but that’s how she would have described him. And she had been right. He was instantly and uncharacteristically suspicious of her role in the transaction.

‘Did you know about this, Christine?’

‘No, of course not. I’d have told you.’

‘So he didn’t tell you beforehand? Or your grandfather?

‘It came as a complete surprise to both of us. And you needn’t look so sceptical. I would have told you.’

‘Would you?’

‘Of course I would.’

‘Then why all the secrecy? Why couldn’t he have come clean?’

‘I think he wanted it to be a surprise for my grandad.’

‘Well, it was certainly that. And completely irresponsible. It could have killed the old man.’

‘I don’t think so.’

They had had arguments in plenty over the years, but none where he had accused her of breaking the trust between them.

‘I think he wanted to have everything settled first. And you weren’t exactly on good terms when he left, were you?’

‘Can you blame me?’

‘Well he’s quite different now.’

‘So I gather. And do you know, it was all that compensation or the knock-on effect of it that meant we had to sell in the first place.’

‘There’s a certain justice in it then, isn’t there?’

‘That’s not what I would call it. This is all nonsense.’ Nicolas was pacing about the room. Kirsty saw that he was still furious.
Furious
. ‘The house is all ready and waiting for Alasdair. It’s cost me a great deal of money to renovate it. I won’t make the offer twice.’

‘You don’t need to. Finn and my grandad always got on well. There’s no reason to suppose they won’t get on just as well now. And you’ll easily find another tenant for the bungalow, so you’ll get a proper market rent for it. You can’t lose, Nick. I don’t really know what you’re complaining about.’

The first thing Finn did was to take Kirsty’s room for his own, sleeping in her old bed, in the wall. It was a good six inches too short for him, but he didn’t seem to mind. Kirsty had been anxious about her grandfather for a week or two. In spite of all that she had said to Nicolas, she did wonder how they would get on, now that their positions were reversed, with Finn as the owner of the farm. But she needn’t have worried. The two seemed to have resumed their old, easy relationship and Alasdair looked happier than she had seen him since Isabel’s death.

Everyone else was trying hard to be civilised, Nicolas especially. It was impossible to avoid Finn altogether on an island as small as this one. He was always polite whenever they met, and Nicolas was invariably courteous. Flora was shy of Finn. On their first meeting, she stood very close to her mother and refused to shake hands with him, bunching her skirt up and sucking her thumb, a baby habit that she only resorted to in stressful situations. Afterwards, she said ‘Why are  you so happy mum? Is it because grandad doesn’t have to move?’ and Kirsty said ‘Yes – it’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

Soon after, India came home for her half-term holiday. Flora was full of the news, and India had to pretend to be very blasé about it all. She walked up to Dunshee with her mother, but when she ran into the kitchen, there was Finn, sitting at the table and fiddling with his old fishing reel which he had found at the back of a cupboard. India seemed taken aback at finding him there, even though she had heard the whole story (several times over) from Flora. She and Finn stared at each other for a moment.

Then he stood up. ‘You must be India.’

He reached out and shook her by the hand.

‘How do you do?’ she replied, very solemnly, and went over to kiss Alasdair. ‘Can I play the fiddle, grandad? I’ve been learning new things at school.’

Finn stood with his arms folded, listening to her, and when she had finished he said ‘You play beautifully.’