The Wicker Tree (29 page)

'I know you,' he said. 'You're the May Queen.'

Struggling to control her shock, Beth blurted out:

'And who are you?'

'I'm Angus. I brought you that note from the Laddie last night,' he said. 'I was supposed to give it you myself, but Mr Beame he said he'd do it.'

Beth was overcome by an immediate feeling of warmth for this boy. He had seen Steve only last night. He had brought her that wonderful note in which Steve said that he still loved her – he still wanted to go back to Texas but, much more importantly, he still loved her.

'I got the note. Thank you so much,' she managed to say.

'The Laddie shoulda brought his shooters,' said Angus. 'What's a cowboy without his shooters?'

'Did you see how he… what happened… to Steve… the Laddie?' What an impossible question to ask the kid, she thought. But she desperately wanted an answer.

'My parents don't allow me outta the house over May Day. "When you're a man," is what they keep saying. It's so unfair. But they been gone to the May Day's Eve picnic and I'm here aren't I? They canna stop me.'

Beth looked back up the hill at the still blazing tree. It was a long way from where they stood, at least a mile she reckoned.

'So what have you seen while they were at the picnic?' she asked, wondering if he could possibly have seen her killing Lachlan.

'I saw crazy Jack comin' back just now. He said…'

'What? What did he say?'

'It's what my dad calls gibberish… Jack said: Horror… upon horror's head! Something like that. Then I saw the tree burning up there. I thought if I go up there, my mum and dad'll see me. So I watched from down here and saw you running this way. Where are you goin'?'

Beth hated telling lies. Even white lies to spare folk's feelings were a problem for her. But now she saw no alternative. To lie successfully to Angus she must discover what he already knew of the truth. But how? Her hesitation seemed to be making Angus nervous. The innocent question asked direct was worth trying.

'I'll tell you where I'm going, but first – why did you think that the Laddie should have had his shooters?'

'To frighten away the hunters. No Laddie has ever had shooters, my dad said. 'Cause I asked him. But no Laddie was ever a real cowboy like Steve. My dad had to admit that if the Laddie had shooters it would make the hunt more exciting.'

'So what happens at the end of the hunt? Do you know?'

'No, that's what the grown-ups call the Tressock Mystery. Mum says: When you're fourteen. When you're no longer a boy. Then you'll know. It's a grown-up game. A bit like charades. So where are you going?'

Beth's plan had been forming as they spoke.

'You see those lights on that hill over there?' She pointed across the valley.

'You mean Kirkallan? It's just a wee village. No very nice people either, in my mum's opinion,' said Angus.

'Well nice or not, I've decided to hide out there. As part of the game, the Queen of the May has to hide till the morning, then they find her and bring her back to Tressock to be crowned. Angus, will you help me find the best way to get there, so that no one from Tressock sees me?'

Beth was relieved that no further lies were needed. Angus seemed delighted to participate in a game from which he had hitherto been excluded. He led the way, whispering warnings about obstacles such as rocks and ditches, until they picked up a sheep's trail which took them straight to the tow-path along the banks of the Sulis. Around a bend in the river they could see a stone bridge. It consisted of five arches, three of which were planted in the fast flowing water.

'There's a road over the bridge where people might see us if we use it to cross to the other side,' said Angus. 'The tow-path goes under the near arch, like. See?'

Beth saw that the tow-path was indeed leading straight under the near side of the bridge. But if they didn't use the bridge to cross, and she could see the risk, they still had to cross the river somewhere in order to climb the hills to Kirkallan.

'Why don't we just swim across right here?' she asked.

'Swim? Here?' Angus seemed to be considering the possibility, but shook his head.

Perhaps he can't swim, thought Beth.

'Leeches,' he said.

'What?'

'Suck your blood,' added Angus. 'If we go quiet under the bridge, my dad's boat is moored a coupla hundred yards further on.'

She had been wrong to doubt him, Beth thought, as they left the comparative light of the midsummer dusk for the dank darkness under the arch. But Angus had stopped just in front of her, so that she bumped into him. He pushed her away from him as he shouted:

'I did it! I did it like you said! The Queen's here. Come and get her.'

The instantaneous terror that gripped Beth made her legs start to give way under her. She thought for no more than an instant of diving into the water and swimming for it, but there were already men in the water wading towards her and other men crowding in along the tow path from both sides of the bridge, amongst them Beame, with Delia at his side. As Beame grabbed her and held her on high, like a trophy, she heard Angus, his child's voice whining with anxiety that he might not get his prize: 'But you promised that next year… That's just not fair…' he was saying to someone, perhaps Delia, perhaps his mum.

But that was in the world Beth knew she had already left. She tried to concentrate now on the world to come, as certain as any human being can be that that she had earned her place in heaven. As she waited for Beame's needle, and the oblivion it would bring, Beth's heaven was already peopled with Steve and her mother and her music, that music she could hear in her inner ear where no other sound would ever penetrate.

SIR LACHLAN WOULD have disapproved. His sudden and totally unexpected death in the accident at the Nuada employees' annual picnic had left Lady Morrison with substantial (and unplanned for) inheritance taxes and it was generally accepted that opening the castle to tourists, starting with the Easter holiday, was unavoidable if she was to keep the estate from being sold. It would be open for four weeks and then closed until July when the schools' summer holidays began.

One of the first groups to arrive was a busload of American Ivy League college kids, exchange students from Edinburgh University, majoring in European History, doing the castles and the cathedrals of Britain. Delia had decided to train a pair of docents by leading the tour around the castle herself, starting with the great entrance hall, with its battle flags and its rich collection of dead animals' heads.

She was herself later to recognise that her introduction to each room was too long, her anecdotes perhaps too British to amuse students for whom the portrait of an old red coat general who sent a message to his superior saying 'pecavi,' meaning 'I have (conquered the province of) Sindh,' required too much explanation. In short it was not altogether surprising that two of the students detached themselves from the tour and set about exploring the spiral staircases, looking into rooms conspicuously marked 'private', and finding their way down into the labyrinthine passages that led to the kitchen and the Queens' Room.

It was there that Beame found a giggling co-ed actually trying the handle of the Queens' Room door. Her male companion, although slightly over-awed by Beame's bulk and his ferocious expression, was quick thinking enough to say, 'She's looking for the toilet.'

'Upstairs, Miss,' said Beame pointing back to the spiral stair. 'Down here's private,' he added.

'What about torture chambers?' asked the young man. 'Don't all these real old castles have those?'

'Yeah and, like, dungeons. Got any dungeons?' asked the girl, quite forgetting her need for the toilet.

Whereupon Beame bellowed a great laugh. Not a humorous sound.

'Why, Lassie?' he asked. 'Would you like to be walled up in one for all eternity?'

Perhaps it was more his terrible laugh than what he actually said that frightened them into hurrying up the stair to rejoin the tour.

Inside the Queens' Room the rosy light bathed all the motionless young women in its pinkish glow. Beame had ended up by doing Beth's eyes great justice. They were just the correct colour. Right beside her an empty throne already awaited the new Queen of the May.

If no miracle had saved Beth, it seemed to most of the population of Tressock that over in the Kelso Hospital's Maternity Wing a miracle was indeed under way. Lolly was having a baby. At seven pounds four ounces her little son represented the hopes of a whole town. Lolly did not know that Delia had jokingly suggested he be 'offered' to the sun. Although Sir Lachlan's mantle had descended upon her shoulders, even he would have found that a difficult proposition to sell to the people of Tressock. Delia had anyway promised that there would, as ever, be a new Laddie and a new Queen. Little Steve would live a much cherished life in Tressock. Beame, who had retrieved his father's hat, wanted to give it to him as soon as he learned to ride.

Back in Texas, some anxiety had grown when nothing further was heard from either Beth or Steve. Inquiries by both the Redeemers organisation and the young people's fathers were made through the US State Department. It turned out that they had last been seen checking into a hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark from where they seemed to have completely disappeared, leaving their passports and all their clothes and effects in their room. As the months wore on and there was no further news of them, folks back home searched for some explanation. When the Cowboys for Christ Church learnt that they had apparently shared a bed in the Danish hotel their worst fears were confirmed. Big Bill's prophecy had come to pass. A Godless Europe had somehow consumed two of their beautiful, innocent children. Amidst the universal sadness at the news of these events only Beth's recording company celebrated, doing so with the release of an album of her greatest hits. Their marketing people came up with an inspired title, adding to the romantic mystery of her disappearance with an authentic Scottish flavour. They called it:

WILL YOU NO COME BACK AGAIN?

A Report of an Incident at the Cowboys for Christ Church in Osceola, Texas

BEFORE THE MYSTERY of Beth and Steve's disappearance completely faded from the collective consciousness of their friends and relations in Texas and, indeed, from that of the public at large, a further incident occurred.

It was a story that never made the front pages of the Texas tabloids, but was stuck somewhere near the entertainment sections because it featured singing star Beth Boothby (missing, presumed dead). A typical wire service report on the story went like this:

'It was like a miracle,' Mr Benny Jones told reporters. 'I was all alone in the Cowboys for Christ church off Route 171 at Osceola, on the night of April 30. Suddenly, I heard Beth Boothby's beautiful singing voice coming from where the preacher normally stands at the lectern.' Astonished, Mr Jones checked if the church's sound system was on, and it definitely was not, he claims. Nor could he have mistaken her voice having known her and her family since she was fourteen years old and driven her in his limo whenever she was in the Dallas/
Fort Worth area. He absolutely denied that he saw any kind of ghostly apparition, insisting he heard only her voice.

He was quite familiar with the song she was singing – 'I Have a Dream' – an Abba favourite, remembering that it had been a big hit some years earlier and that Beth had liked it.

He can now particularly recall two lines of the song because Boothby repeated them several times. He says that he was struck by the fact that she used the word 'we' again and again and not the word 'I', as in the original song. He believes that by using the 'we', she was including Steve Thomson, her Silver Ring friend, who also disappeared when they were both on a missionary trip to Scotland.

Mr Jones, who works for Buckingham Livery and Hire as a limousine driver, found time on his hands when Beth, a regular customer, went off to Scotland with her friend Steve and the Redeemers, an evangelical group. This resulted in his doing part-time work as a cleaner for the Cowboys for Christ church.
The church's pastor, the Reverend Kenny Norquist, would not comment on the incident except to say that Benny Jones was no longer in their employ. He added that no one else had seen or heard any manifestation of Beth Boothby or Steve Thomson in the church and thinks that Mr Jones must be mistaken. After an initial ghost scare, attendance at the church has returned to normal.

Since it was impossible to verify Benny's statement in any way, and there had been no repetition of the incident, the press soon lost interest in the story.

Benny's wife (and Beth's housekeeper) Vashti still hopes for her employer's return to the home she has kept ready for her at all times. She believes her husband's story, but most folks locally do not. This scepticism might be expected to upset Benny and Vashti, but that is not the case. They conclude that Beth's song was a message from heaven, meant for them alone.

All the characters featured as protagonists in
Cowboys for Christ
(now retitled
The Wicker Tree
), a work of fiction, are imaginary. Any similarity between any of them and any real persons living or dead is purely coincidental. While there are a number of Christian congregations that call themselves Cowboys for Christ churches, both in Texas and elsewhere, the church featured in this novel is imaginary. The Redeemers, an evangelical movement with a notable choir, do not exist although there are many similar American Christian groups working as missionaries around the world.

The Border Ridings take place every year and are celebrated by certain small towns on the Scottish side of the border with England. The fictional Tressock is quite unlike any of these places. Opinion is very divided as to why and how the ritual of townspeople hunting an elected or chosen young man over hill and dale originated. One tradition (of which there are several versions) has it that it stems from the defeat of a Scottish army by the English, during which the Scottish king was killed. A brave young man rescued the royal banner and, although heavily pursued, carried it back to Stirling castle to the widowed queen. A completely different tradition features in this novel but there is not the slightest evidence it has ever taken place.