September (1990) (6 page)

Having devoured everything on the table, Noel found himself still peckish, and so Alexa produced cheese and a bunch of pale-green seedless grapes. With these, they finished the last of the wine. Alexa suggested coffee.

By now it was growing dark. Outside, in the dusky blue street, the lights had come on. Their glow penetrated the basement kitchen, but mostly all was shadowy. Noel was, all at once, overcome by a mammoth yawn. When he had dealt with this, he apologized. "I'm sorry. I really must get home."

"Have some coffee first. It'll keep you awake until you reach your bed. I tell you what-why don't you go upstairs and relax, and I'll bring your coffee up to you. And then I'll phone for a taxi."

Which sounded an eminently sensible idea.

"Right."

But even saying the word took mucTi conscious effort. He was aware of arranging his tongue and his lips in the correct position to make the appropriate sound, and knew that he was either drunk or on the point of flaking out from lack of sleep. Coffee was an excellent idea. He put his hands on the table and levered himself to his feet. Going up the basement stairs, headed for the drawing-room, was even more of a trial. Half-way up he stumbled but somehow managed to keep his balance and not to fall flat on his face.

Upstairs, the empty room waited, quiet in the bloomy twilight. The only illumination came from the street lights, and these were reflected from the brass fender and the facets of the crystal chandelier that hung from the middle of the ceiling. It seemed a pity to dispel the peaceful dusk by turning on switches, so he didn't. The dog was asleep on the chair that Noel had previously occupied, so he sank down in a corner of the sofa. The dog, disturbed, awoke and raised his head, and stared at Noel. Noel stared back; The dog turned into two dogs. He was drunk. He had not slept for ever. He would not sleep now. He was not sleeping.

He was dozing. Sleeping and waking at the same time. He was in the 747, droning back over the Atlantic, with his fat neighbour snoring alongside. His chairman was telling him to go to Edinburgh, to sell Saddlebags to a man called Edmund Aird. There were voices, calling and shouting; the children playing in the street on their bicycles. No, they were not in the street, they were outside, in some garden. He was in a cramped and steeply ceilinged room, peering from the peep-hole of a window. Honeysuckle fronds tapped on the glass. His old room, in his mother's house in Gloucestershire. Outside on the lawn, a game was in progress. Children and adults played cricket. Or was it rounders? Or baseball? They looked up and saw his face through the glass. "Come down," they told him. "Come down and play." He was pleased that they wanted him. It was good to be home. He went out of the room and downstairs; stepped out into the garden, but the cricket game was over, and they had all disappeared. He did not mind. He lay on the grass and stared at the bright sky, and everything was all right. None of the bad things had happened after all, and nothing had changed. He was alone, but soon somebody would come. He could wait.

Another sound. A clock ticking. He opened his eyes. The street lamps no longer shone, and the darkness had gone. It was not his mother's garden, not his mother's house, but some strange room. He had no idea where he was. He lay flat on his back on a sofa, with a rug over him. The fringe of the rug tickled his chin, and he pushed it away. Staring upwards, he saw the glittering droplets of the chandelier, and then remembered. Moving his head, he saw the armchair, with its back to the window; a girl sat there, her bright hair an aureole against the morning light beyond the uncurtained window. He stirred. She stayed silent. He said her name. "Alexa?"

"Yes." She was awake.

"What time is it?"

"Just after seven."

"Seven in the morning?"

"Yes."

"I've been here all night." He stretched, easing his long legs. "I fell asleep."

"You were asleep by the time I came up with the coffee. I thought about waking you, but then I decided against it."

He blinked, clearing the sleep from his eyes. He saw that she was no longer wearing her jeans and sweatshirt, but a white towelling robe, wrapped closely about her. She had bundled herself up in a blanket, but her legs and feet, protruding, were bare.

"Have you been there all night?"

"Yes."

"You should have gone to bed."

"I didn't like to leave you. I didn't want you to wake up and feel you had to go, and not be able to find a taxi in the middle of the night. I made up my spare bed, but then I thought, what's the point? So I just 16ft you to sleep."

He caught the tail end of his dream before it faded into oblivion. He had latn in his mother's garden in Gloucestershire, and known that someone was coming. Not his mother. Penelope was dead. Somebody else. Then the dream was gone for good, leaving him with Alexa.

He felt, surprisingly, enormously well, energetic and refreshed. Decisive. "I must go home."

"Shall I call you a taxi?"

"No. I'll walk. It'll do me good."

"It's a lovely morning. Do you want something to eat before you go?"

"No, I'm fine." He pushed aside the rug and sat up, smoothing back his hair and running his hand over his stubbly chin. "I must go." He got to his feet.

Alexa made no effort to persuade him to stay, but simply came with him into the hall, opened her front door onto a pearly, pristine May morning. The distant rumble of traffic was already audible, though a bird was singing from some tree, and the air was fresh. He imagined that he could smell lilac.

"Goodbye, Noel."

He turned to her. "I'll ring you."

"You don't need to."

"Don't I?"

"You don't owe me anything."

"You're very sweet." He stooped and kissed her peachy cheek. "Thank you."

"I've liked it."

He left her. Went down the steps and set off, at a brisk clip, down the pavement. At the end of the street he turned and looked back. She was gone, and the blue front door stood closed. But it seemed to Noel that the house with the bay tree had a special look about it.

He smiled to himself and went on his way.

Chapter
1

Tuesday the Seventh

Isobel Balmerino, at the wheel of her minibus, drove the ten miles to Corriehill. It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon and the beginning of June, but although the trees were heavy with leaf and the fields green with growing crops, there had, so far, been no summer at all. It was not exactly cold, but it was dank and drizzling, and all the way from Croy her windscreen wipers had been working. Clouds hung low over the hills and all was drowned in greyness. She felt sorry for the foreign visitors, come so far to see the glories of Scotland, only to find them shrouded in murk and almost invisible.

Not that this troubled her. She had made the complicated journey, cross-country and by back roads, so many times before that she sometimes thought that if she were to dispatch the minibus on its own it would manage very nicely, getting itself to Corriehill and back with no human assistance, reliable as a faithful horse.

Now she had come to the familiar junction and was nearly there. She changed down and swung the minibus into a single-track lane hedged with hawthorn. This lane led up and onto the hill, and as she climbed, the mist grew thicker; prudently she switched on the headlights. To her right appeared the tall stone wall, the march boundary of the Corriehill estate. Another quarter of a mile, and she had reached the great entrance gates, the two lodges. She turned between these and bumped her way up the rutted drive lined with historic beeches and deep verges of rough grass which, in spring, were gold with daffodils. The daffodils had long since died back, and their withered heads and dying leaves were all that remained of their former gloiy. Some time, some day, Verena's handyman would cut the verges with his garden tractor, and that would be the end of the daffodils. Until next spring.

It occurred to her, sadly, and not for the first time, that as you grew older you became busier, and time went faster and faster, the months pushing each other rudely out of the way, and the years slipping off the calendar and into the past. Once, there had been time. Time to stand, or sit, and just look at daffodils. Or to abandon housekeeping, on the spur of the moment, walk out of the back door and up the hill, into the lark
-
song emptiness of a summer morning. Or to take off for a self-indulgent day in Relkirk, shopping for frivolities, meeting a girl-friend for lunch, the wine bar warm with humanity and conversation, smelling of coffee and the sort of food that one never cooked for oneself.

All treats that for a number of reasons didn't seem to happen any longer.

The driveway levelled off. Beneath the wheels of the minibus, gravel scrunched. The house loomed up at her through the mist. There were no other cars, which meant that probably all the other hostesses had been, collected their guests, and gone. So Verena would be waiting for her. Isobel hoped that she would not have become impatient.

She drew up, switched off her engine, and got out into the soft, drizzly air. The main door stood open, giving onto a large paved porch, with an inner glass door beyond. This porch was stacked with an enormous amount of expensive luggage. Isobel quailed, because it seemed to be even more lavish than usual. Suitcases (hugely big), garment bags, small grips, golf bags, boxes and parcels and carriers, emblazoned with the familiar names of large stores. (They'd obviously been shopping.) All of these were tagged with distinctive yellow labels: scottish country tours.

Diverted, she paused to read the names on the labels. Mr. Joe Hardwicke. Mr. Arnold Franco. Mrs. Myra Hardwicke. Mrs. Susan Franco. The suitcases were heavily monogrammed, and the golf bags had prestigious club labels hanging from their handles.

She sighed. Here we go again. She opened the inner door.

"Verena!"

The hallway at Corriehill was immense, with a carved oak stairway rising to the upper floors, and much panelling. The floor was scattered with rugs, some quite ordinary and others probably priceless, and in the middle of the floor stood a table bearing a varied collection of objects: a potted geranium, a dog's lead, a brass tray for letters, and a massive leather-bound visitors' book.

"Verena?"

A door, distantly, shut. Footsteps came up the passage from the direction of the kitchen. Verena Steynton presently appeared, looking, as always, tall, slender, unfussed, and perfectly turned out. She was one of those women who, maddeningly, always appear co-ordinated, as though she spent much time each day selecting and matching her various garments. This skirt, this shirt; that cashmere cardigan, these shoes. Even the damp and muggy weather, which ruined the hair-dos of most right-minded women, didn't stand a chance with Verena's coiffure, which never wilted under the most adverse of circumstances, and always appeared as neat and glamorous as if she had just come out from under the dryer. Isobel had no illusions about her own appearance. Stocky and sturdy as a highland pony, her complexion rosy and shining, her hands roughened by work, she had long stopped bothering about the way she looked. But, seeing Verena, she all at once wished that she had taken the time to change out of her corduroy trousers and the quilted sludge-coloured waistcoat that was her oldest friend.

"Isobel."

"I hope I'm not late."

"No. You're the last but you're not late. Your guests are ready and waiting for you in the drawing-room. Mr. and Mrs. Hardwicke, and Mr. and Mrs. Franco. From the look of them slightly more robust than our usual run of clients." Isobel knew some relief. Perhaps the men would be able to hump their own golf bags. "Where's Archie? Are you on your own?"

"He had to go to a church meeting at Balnaid."

"Will you manage?"

"Of course."

"Well, look, before you whisk them away, there's been a slight change of plan. I'll explain. We'd better go into the library."

Obediently, Isobel followed her, prepared to take orders. The library at Corriehill was a pleasant room, smaller than most of the other apartments, and smelled comfortably masculine-of pipe smoke and woodsmoke, of old books and old dogs. The old-dog smell emanated from an elderly Labrador snoozing on its cushion by the ashy remains of a fire. It raised its head, saw the two ladies, blinked in a superior fashion and went back to sleep.

"The thing is . . ." Verena started, and at once the telephone on the desk began to ring. She said, "Damn. Sorry, I won't be a moment," and went to answer it. "Hello, Verena Steynton . . . Yes." Her voice changed. "Mr. Abberley. Thank you for calling back." She pulled the chair from the desk and sat down, reaching for her ball-point pen and a pad of paper. She looked as though she was settling in for a long session and Isobel's heart sank, because she wanted to get home.

"Yes. Oh, splendid. Now, we shall need your largest marquee, and I think the pale-yellow-and-white lining. And a dance floor." Isobel pricked up her ears, stopped feeling impatient and eavesdropped shamelessly. "The date? We thought the sixteenth of September. That's a Friday. Yes, I think you'd better come and see me, and we'll talk it over. Next week would be fine. Wednesday morning. Right. I'll see you then. Goodbye, Mr. Abberley." She rang off and leaned back in her chair, wearing the satisfied expression of one with a job well done. "Well, that's the first thing settled."