The Wicker Tree (19 page)

'Would you be free from your burden of sin?

There's power in the blood, power in the blood

Would you o'er evil a victory win?

There's power in the blood of the lamb.'

As Steve passed through the crowd, Mary Hillier, Bella, Deirdre, Danny, Carl and Peter, the innkeeper, everyone in a little town denuded of people, except Lolly, Jack and, of course, Orlando, was there to take his pamphlets. They seemed to try for a few instants to share the space through which he moved and, if possible, to touch him. In a way that really impressed and bewildered Steve, his very presence seemed precious to them.

But was he as astounded as another Scot might have been? No, these people, for all their white skins and similar looks to the Caucasian majority inhabiting Texas, were profoundly foreign. Had they all wanted to rub noses or ritually kiss him he would have been surprised, yes, but astounded – no. Neither Terry nor any of the Redeemers' other mentors had made the mistake of suggesting that these folks were normal, like Americans. If they had been they would probably have found their own way back to Jesus, and not needed the Redeemers to come help them. But Steve, smiling and laughing and accepting their curious adulation with the 'aw shucks' charm that was natural to him, nevertheless felt a little uneasy.

While the sound of the 'Power in the Blood' hymn floated out of the open windows of the Grand Saloon and could probably have been heard half a mile away, out on the terrace, where the little pigs revolved and sizzled on their state-of-the-art electronic spits, Jack could be seen loitering.

He had picked up one of the carving knives from the serving table nearby, when Lolly arrived looking flushed and slightly dishevelled. She seemed surprised to see Jack.

'Hullo Jack, what are you doing?' she asked, although his intention to cut himself a nice morsel of pork and crackling seemed plain enough.

'Hungry, Lolly,' he said in that monosyllabic way he spoke when verse had somehow deserted him.

'Not murder most foul,' he added, brandishing the knife and giving an eerie high pitched laugh. Lolly laughed in unison. She and Jack were often allies. But one thing did worry her and that was the black, flapping, strutting presence of Nevermore nearby.

'Go on, cut yourself a piece,' she said. 'You're as entitled as anyone else. But for heaven's sake don't feed Nevermore or we'll have the whole flock down here.'

Jack had cut himself a modest sliver of pork and was chewing on it, the fat running down his chin. He shooed Nevermore away with a threatening slice of the knife in the air.

Lolly peeped through one of the windows at the crowd inside. 'There's someone I want to see, Jack,' she said, 'but I don't want him to see me wanting to see him, if you catch my drift.'

'You're in love with a wonderful guy?' hazarded Jack.

'No I'm not!' said Lolly. 'Yes you are!' 'No I'm not!' 'Yes you are! Yes you are! Yes you are!' Jack was laughing.Lolly scowled at Jack, but it was a thoughtful scowl. Then she gave him a kiss on his cheek and disappeared in the direction of the Willies Walk and Tressock town. Jack gathered up Nevermore and made for home murmuring to himself in a pleased voice:

'Say I'm weary, say I'm sad

Say that health and wealth have missed me

Say I'm growing old, but add

Lolly kissed me…'

INSIDE THE GRAND Saloon Lachlan was addressing the crowd.

'The day after tomorrow we will be crowning our Queen of the May. Can anyone here imagine a more perfect Queen than Beth, with the gift of that incomparable voice?'

The band played a noisy flourish and there was a unanimous shout of approval from the audience.

'Do you accept, Beth?' asked Lachlan.

Beth was clearly very moved. Her eyes were misty as she made her reply.

'I am deeply honoured,' she said. 'Sure I accept! Lachlan has explained to us how the next two days are, like, very special holidays for you. As soon as they are over, Steve and I hope you will come and talk to us about Jesus, like, we'll be waiting and hoping…'

'…and praying that you'll come,' added Steve.

'And now let us sing one of our old songs to Steve and Beth,' invited Lachlan. He had only to sing the first line in his deep bass tones for the whole audience and the band to join in with gusto:

'Will you go, Laddie, go

To the braes o' Balquiddher

We'll crown the lass your Queen

We'll feast the night together…'

They sang it boisterously as one sings a national anthem.As the song ended, Lachlan put his hand on Steve's shoulder, leading him forward. Steve, who had accepted what was now to be announced, out of a sense of adventure more than duty to the Redeemers' cause, nevertheless felt deeply hesitant without fully understanding why.

'And here to crown our Queen – is your Laddie!'

Uproar in the Grand Saloon followed. Up on the dais, Steve stood bemused, smiling slightly as Beth tucked her arm through his. Well used to being the subject of public adulation and playing instinctively to the crowd, she kissed him on the cheek. Some of the audience gave a little gasp of pleasure at this.

After the election of the Queen and the nomination of the Laddie, the crowd milled around in the marquee feasting off the food on the trestle tables. The fare on offer was traditional Scottish cooking. There were haggis and blood puddings to go with more prosaic steak and kidney pies, made with suet not pastry, game pies and several different kinds of pasty; there was fresh wild salmon and smoked fish too. Mountains of hot, freshly baked rolls in baskets sat beside the many puddings, jellies, syllabubs and custards. The dishes with Delia's hash brownies were emptied within a few minutes. Wine and whisky and beer were all available and there were plenty of takers for all three. Moving backwards and forwards to the spits to cut themselves slices of pork, people in the crowd all agreed that Sir Lachlan and Lady Morrison had secured them an outstanding Laddie and a May Queen who, with her great musical talent, was superior to anyone offered up in recent years.

While this was going on, Mary Hillier led Steve and Beth off to a hunting lodge in the deer park, reached by a stone bridge, called the Bridge of Sighs by the Morrisons, although it scarcely resembled the original in Venice. It had been arranged that the two of them should have a short time to themselves before Steve rode off with Lachlan to be prepared for the Laddie's ride the next day, while Beth would be collected by Delia to come and relax as a guest in the castle overnight.

As Mary Hillier led them across the bridge, she chattered like the excited little bird she rather resembled. They could already see the hunting lodge, an oddly gothic looking little building with mullioned windows, situated where the once extensive deer park now bordered ploughed fields.

'Like I said,' Mary was sounding slightly schoolmarmish. 'This was a hunting lodge once. But our government has started to ban all that. Fishing will be next, they say. Too painful for the poor wee fish!'

'So how do you think it went, Mary?' asked Beth.

'D'you think they bought it?' added Steve, before Mary could answer.

'Bought it? Oh, don't worry your heads about that! They loved you, my lambs, couldn't you tell? They – well – we all thought you just perfect.'

Mary Hillier had reached the front door of the hunting lodge and opened it for them. But she simply ushered them in, not following herself.

'This is all set up for you to have a wee while together, without anyone disturbing you. They've left a flagon of punch – oh, it's not alcoholic – we know you might not want anything like that – and plenty to eat if you're hungry. Sir Lachlan and Lady Morrison will be by to collect you well before dark.'

With which Mary Hillier was gone, closing the door behind her. Beth and Steve both gave a sigh of relief. In their different ways, they both thought of the Tressockites as potential subjects for their evangelism. It was difficult to completely relax in their presence.

But there the similarity between their moods ended. Beth was floating on a post-performance high. And yet she had only to look at Steve to see that he was deeply troubled. He had started to sip the punch and, testing it and finding it undrinkable, went to the refrigerator in the little wet bar off the great panelled room. Taking two Cokes out, he popped their tops, giving one to Beth.

'We'd best pour that punch down the drain. It sure is yucky. Lord knows what's in it. But lets not hurt their feelings.' Steve poured the punch into the basin of the little bar, flushing it away with water from the tap.

Beth had learnt not to be too direct with Steve. But now she could not resist challenging him. His mood seemed hard to explain given what they had both just experienced.

'You got a problem, Steve? Don't you think it went well? I mean it seemed to me it was, like, a triumph beyond our wildest dreams. How many prospective souls were there? I mean that was a big number of people.'

'Guess so,' said Steve. 'Still, somethin' about it seemed kind of weird to me. They loved you because you're a star. You look like a star and of course you sing like a star. But I'm not a star. Yet they treated me like one. Isn't
that
weird? I mean there's somethin' goin' on and I just can't figure it out.'

'What is there to figure out?' asked Beth. 'Mary says they love us. They want me to be Queen of the May and you their Laddie – which means riding the horse you love…'

In spite of Beth's persuasive tone, Steve seemed increasingly doubtful.

'Beth, I have a confession to make. I'm not worthy to be no Redeemer. I'm a sinner, Beth. You don't want to know. But I am a sinner. Big time.'

He was standing, staring moodily into the fire. Beth put her hand on his shoulder. She was astonished and upset by what he had said, but, more than that, puzzled.

'Is this about us? About what happened in that hotel in Glasgow? When we suddenly thought about our silver rings…'

She was staring at his ringless hand.

'Steve!' she shouted. 'Where is it? Your ring?'

'I lost it, Beth.' He made it a simple statement of fact.

Beth was now in shock, utterly distracted by Steve's lack of his silver ring.

'I'm not the guy for you Beth,' Steve was saying. 'Can you be a believer AND a sinner? I guess you can. 'Cause that's me. Tomorrow I'll be their Laddie and after that, hopefully, we'll gather a whole wagon load of souls for Jesus. Then I'll go right back to Texas, where I belong. And I hope you'll come too, honey. Because something about this isn't right. I mean who are we to try and change these people? I know Jesus wants us to do it. But I still ask myself the question.'

A little later, Lachlan rode over the Bridge of Sighs on Prince. He was leading a fine bay horse all saddled up for Steve. As he neared the hunting lodge he slowed Prince to a standstill and listened. The voices of his guests were being raised in – it sounded like anger – but perhaps anguish. Either way, it was a disturbing development. He had rather hoped that, buoyed by the success of their preach-in, they would fall into each other's arms and do whatever Silver Ring Thing lovers did with each other. A torrent of chaste kisses perhaps? He would have liked to have thought she had even gone so far as to have yielded up her cherry to Steve in wild celebration. Perhaps that is sheer sentimentality on my part, reflected Lachlan.

Someone was knocking at the door. Steve, hugely relieved at the interruption, hurried to open it. Beth followed him, hissing in his ear. 'You do still love me, Steve?'

'I do, honey. We go back a long ways. No, I really do. Don't you worry about that!'

Steve had now opened the door and there stood a smiling Lachlan, looking at them slightly anxiously.

'Everything alright with you two?' he asked lightly.

'Oh sure,' said Beth, summoning up the smile with some difficulty.

'Yeah, sure thing,' added Steve, who had just seen the handsome bay next to Prince. 'Who is that?'

'His name is Killiecrankie. Called for a famous battle that we won.'

'Against the British?'

'We Scots are British too, Steve. Against the English.'

'Where is Delia?' asked Beth, brightly enough, but slightly irritated by this totally irrelevant conversation.

'She'll be here shortly to pick you up, Beth. Mary Hillier is bringing your things,' said Lachlan.

'So, see you later,' said Beth to Steve, covering the anger and disappointment she felt with a cold nonchalance.

But this was slightly lost on Steve, who was already looking closely at Killiecrankie. He patted the horse's neck and then turned to lengthen the stirrups somewhat.

'Yeah, see you later, honey,' he replied. 'Take care.'

'Yeah, you too,' she responded rather mechanically, watching for a moment as they both mounted their horses. Then she shut the door and rushed to bury her head, sobbing, into one of the cushions on the sofa. She was still there, still trying to staunch her tears when Delia arrived.

WHEN DELIA CAME to call for her, Beth was feeling real mad with Steve. Wild thoughts flew around in her poor anguished mind. So Steve couldn't handle the Silver Ring Thing. He thought that chastity, abstinence, at any rate for men, was dumb. Not human, he'd said. As if, thought Beth, we should all have the morals of the apes. That was probably another of Mr Charles Darwin's hellish theories.

Delia had arrived with Mary Hillier, who had brought Beth's clothes.

'You've been crying, my lamb, haven't you?'

'Does it matter?' asked Beth. 'I think I'll go straight to bed, if you don't mind.'

'You'll do nothing of the kind, Beth!' said Delia quite firmly. 'If that Steve's been unkind, put him out of your mind. Just for a while. Till you're good and ready to forgive him. For quite a high price. Never forgive a man for little. We've arranged a party for you fit for a Queen of the May. Some of our best-looking young men will be there. Nearly all good dancers.'

They were going through her suitcase, the one suitcase allowed by the Redeemers. It was full of sensible missionary's clothes. An expensive but plain little black dress for the rare social occasion someone born again, wearing a Silver Ring Thing and preaching door-to-door might expect to attend was, Beth knew, the best she had to offer.