O Caledonia (24 page)

Clutching their pieces of coal, they knocked on Mr Neville
'
s door. It was whisked open. Hector stepped carefully, left foot first, over the threshold. A genial hubbub greeted them. The lonely widower was not alone. Holding on to the wall with one hand, he came to greet them, lurching and weaving but none the less dignified. Hector set his coal carefully on the fire and joined the throng around the table. Francis followed him. Janet stood still, overwhelmed with shyness. She did not know what to do. The moon spread a dazzle of silver on the sea; she wanted to go to the window and watch it but she dared not move. She was still holding her piece of coal; she could not put it on the fire. Someone thrust a glass of whisky into her hand and before she could say
‘
No, thank you
'
moved on. The little room was very hot and full of noisy people. Slowly and carefully, trying to make no sound, she put down her glass and her coal and took off her heavy coat. Then she picked up the coal again, and the glass also, so as not to seem rude or ungrateful. She prayed to the moon that someone might come and talk to her, release her from this tranced immobility. The moon gave her a leery look and sidled behind a cloud. A moment or two later it relented and reappeared; but Janet thought its expression malign. Perhaps she was mistaken, for here was a man standing at her elbow with every sign of convivial goodwill.
‘
I know you,
'
he was saying.
‘
I met you long ago, when your family lived at the manse. You were just a wee thing then; you won
'
t remember. Your grandfather was always very good to me.
'
He gulped his whisky. Janet smiled encouragingly; she was still speechless, but she was beginning to feel less estranged.
‘
Aye,
'
he said,
‘
a long time past. And now you
'
re grown up.
'
He stared at her from unfocused eyes.
‘
Indeed so. Quite the young lady.
'
Suddenly he was pinching her left bosom with a hand which had no fingers, only a row of wizened purple stumps. As suddenly, his hand dropped, he turned on his heel and walked away. Janet stood there. Again, she did not know what to do. Nothing she had read, nothing she had been taught, nothing in her life had prepared her for this. If she kept very still perhaps it would turn out that it had not happened; or perhaps she would cease to exist. She stood motionless, but her offending bosom rose and fell. She must not breathe. She held her breath. Now she was truly motionless. She fainted.

 

*

 

March was mild that year, and the snow melted earlier than anyone could remember. The gentlest of winds stirred the wild cherry blossom against a soft blue sky. Daffodils and snowdrops bloomed together. Janet
'
s jackdaw was behaving strangely. He would climb into her pocket and peer up at her, twisting his head in a beckoning manner, his eye bright with meaning. She became worried and searched for a jackdaw book. In Konrad Lorenz
'
s wonderful
King Solomon's Ring
she found the explanation. He wished to lure her into her pocket, and there they would build a nest together. He had chosen her as his mate, his true and everlasting love, for jackdaws are monogamous. How strange that the creature who offered her all this should be a bird. How strange for him that she should be a human. What a merry little joke for the gods. She felt honoured and glorified, but she was glad when summer began and the nesting season was over. One day as Claws paced along the roof of 8, Belitha Villas, he spoke.
‘
Never mind,
'
he said. Janet was overjoyed; but surely he meant to say
‘
Never more
'
.
‘
Never more, Claws,
'
she said,
‘
Never more.
' ‘
Never mind,
'
he repeated, and this time he sounded like Francis.

‘
I thought it was a more useful expression,
'
said Francis.
‘
But I
'
ve been teaching him to say
“
Never more
”
for almost a year.
' ‘
Well, I
'
ve been teaching him to say
“
Never mind
”
for about three weeks. I think we may draw certain conclusions about our respective teaching methods. I also think that Poe
'
s poem would have been a lot more fun if the Raven said
“
Never mind
”
and I shall be emending any copies which come my way.
'
Janet glanced anxiously at her guano-encrusted bookcase.
‘
Don
'
t worry. I
'
ve sorted yours out already.
'

 

*

 

Janet
'
s last summer term at St Uncumba
'
s passed swiftly, as examination terms always do. She completed her
‘
A
'
levels and attempted Maths
‘
O
'
level for the fifth time. There was a total eclipse of the sun on the day the
‘
A
'
levels ended. The girls believed it was a cosmic confirmation of their new adult lives; they sat out on the grass in the ghostly light and vowed that come what may they would meet together in seventeen years
'
time, when the next total eclipse was due. There followed a period of elegiac lazing; the blue skies and the blue sea shimmered with the poignancy of farewell. The staff invited girls to tea, plied them with cakes and revealed themselves as warm, witty human beings. Everyone suddenly liked everyone else. Cynthia and Janet, buoyed by the happy knowledge that they need never speak to each other again, wept and embraced at the prospect of their separation.

Just before the end of term Miss Wilson, who taught Latin, took Janet to a classical verse-speaking competition at Glasgow University. Janet recited the passage from the Georgies which described Orpheus
'
final loss of Eurydice. She was nervous beforehand and shook uncontrollably when she was on the stage. She spoke her lines over-emphatically so that they seemed to be a harangue rather than a lamentation. Her teeth chattered in the pauses. Mortified, she sat with bowed head beside kind, comforting Miss Wilson and listened to the other speakers, many of whom were even worse than she. People sniffed and coughed and shuffled. There were too many entries. The air grew heavy with apathy. Janet longed for tea. Then suddenly there was absolute silence; the atmosphere was electric. Janet sat bolt upright, her spine tingling, her heart leaping. A boy was speaking Greek, Hector
'
s farewell to Andromache. Mournful and tender, cruel and foreboding, beyond all else noble, the beautiful voice rose finally to the tolling invocation of the gods and died away. People jumped to their feet, applauding wildly. Janet still sat, transfixed, staring at the boy
'
s dark face. She had fallen in love.

 

*

 

It is said that those who are visited by a vision are not to be envied, for they are thereafter haunted. So it was with Janet. She learned the passage of Homer by heart and nightly repeated it to herself, trying to conjure up the boy
'
s voice. She knew his name, for of course he had won the competition. She discovered that he had a cousin in her year at St Uncumba
'
s. In the genial atmosphere of the end of term she persuaded this cousin to give her a photograph of him. She also found out his address and wrote to him
–
a simple, objective sort of letter expressing her admiration for his recitation and her hope that one day they might meet to discuss classical matters. He did not reply.

Back at Auchnasaugh the blue days of earlier summer were now obliterated by a pervasive mist which hung all day long, every day. In the evenings it dispersed, revealing a watery sky and fitful shafts of pallid sunlight. Janet was unconcerned. She kept to her room, reading love poetry and dreaming of Desmond (for this was his pleasing name). From her window she could see only a uniform whiteness, with the occasional spare suggestion of a branch. The glen was blotted out and silent but for the sound of dripping trees. When a bird sang out of the fog it startled her. Claws was depressed and stayed in with her; sometimes he shredded a page of her book to create a diversion. He could sense that she was abstracted. He sat on her shoulder and tweaked her hair, crying
‘
Never mind
'
at her unresponsive back. One day he noticed the photograph of Desmond protruding from the
Iliad.
He pulled it out and threw it on the floor. So it was that the creature who loved her most brought about her destruction.

Vera and Hector were suspicious of Janet. Not only was she more than usually reclusive, but she had lost weight and her eyes had a feverish shine. Vera went to examine her room for signs of depravity and found the photograph lying on the bird-stained carpet. She carried it off and showed it to Hector. They resolved to have it out with Janet.

‘
We don
'
t know what you
'
re up to, Janet, but we know you
'
re up to something. What we do insist on knowing is the name of this young man and your connection with him.
'
A great tide of fury surged up in Janet.
‘
I
'
m not going to tell you,
'
she said.
‘
And please give me back that photograph. It
'
s my property.
' ‘
Don
'
t be insolent. And do as you
'
re told. We want his name.
' ‘
I
'
m not telling you,
'
Janet said again. They began to shout at her. Their faces were distorted with anger. Hector tore the photograph in pieces and flung them on the fire. Janet burst into tears and slammed out of the room. She locked her door and barricaded it with chairs. Then she sat weeping on her bed. She cradled Claws on her lap and rocked from side to side.
‘
Poor little bird,
'
she sobbed.
‘
Poor little bird.
'

The next day she refused to unlock the door and she would not answer when they spoke to her. They were all supposed to be going away for a couple of days to the west coast, where the sun was apparently shining.
‘
If you don
'
t come out this minute, Janet, you
'
ll have to stay behind.
' ‘
Good,
'
said Janet silently.
‘
Right, that
'
s it. You
'
re a very silly little girl. And you won
'
t like being here by yourself one bit. On your own head be it. You
'
re old enough to fend for yourself. We
'
ll see you on Monday. Meanwhile you had better think one or two things over.
'
Janet listened to the retreating car engine. She waited for half an hour to be sure that they had gone and then she took down her barricades. How wonderful to have all Auchnasaugh to herself.

The day passed pleasantly. She wandered about the castle, entering rooms which were usually out of bounds because they were dangerous, or because they contained important documents. She particularly enjoyed the circular attic room above the circular nursery. It contained a huge wasps
'
nest. She found a battered old suitcase full of Lila
'
s flappy black clothes. These she decided to wear for the family homecoming. How angry that would make Vera. She would persist in wearing them and eventually, with any luck, Vera would ask in exasperation why she always had to wear black and she would reply like Nina in
The Seagull
,
‘
I am in mourning for my life
'
. For some time she had been looking for a chance to use this line, and it would make Vera even angrier. With some difficulty she dragged a tall mildewed mirror down from the attic to her room and admired the greenish quality it gave to her skin. In the afternoon she and Claws walked down through the mist to visit the ponies. She decided that she enjoyed moving through this vaporous element. She felt weightless, as though she might fly.