A Small Death in the Great Glen (6 page)

Just like his mother, she thought, and sighed to herself.

The drinking, the heat, the volume of talk increased steadily. The men had regrouped around the bar; their wives stayed at the tables to embark on the character assassinations that passed for conversation among the “ladies.” Joanne sat watching the band, half listening to the conversations around her, and did not catch the opening salvo.

“Sorry, I was miles away.”

“We were just saying, dear, how unusual your dress is.” The woman across the table smirked at her. As the wife of the town clerk she assumed the right to be first with the velvet dagger.

“It's the latest fashion from Paris.” Joanne smiled. “Well, at least the pattern is. The fabric is Italian. A present from my friend Chiara Corelli.”

Another of the tightly permed and tightly corseted brigade around the table got in the next barb—“Ah yes, the chip shop people”—and duly received appreciative sniggers.

The next harpy took her turn. “You must be a very busy person, dear. A successful husband, two young children, a job on the
Gazette,
I hear,
and
you make your own clothes too! Still, I'm sure it saves money.”

“The silk wasn't cheap,” Joanne started. “It was a
Vogue
pattern, and . . . I enjoy sewing.” She was floundering.

“Mrs. Ross, may I have this dance?” McAllister appeared behind Joanne's chair. He nodded around the table. “Ladies.”

The chorus returned his greeting, disappointed at having their prey snatched from them. But Joanne clearly heard the final judgment as they headed for the dance floor. “Just who does she think she is?” Enshrined in the well-worn phrase were all the petty jealousies and small-minded prejudices of a small town.

“Knitting before the guillotine, I presume?” McAllister held the tall slim figure lightly as they swung around the floor, Joanne's fury vibrating through his hands.

“Something like that.”

“Jealousy, my dear, plain and simple.”

“In my homemade dress and my granny's pearls, I hardly think so.”

“In your elegant creation and heirloom pearls, with your chic hairstyle and natural beauty, not forgetting your obvious intelligence, they have everything to be jealous of, Mrs. Ross.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir. Now you're making me blush. But thanks for rescuing me. I never saw you as a knight in shining armor.”

“I will endeavor to keep up the illusion.”

They stood at the edge of the crowd waiting out the next dance.

“You know, no matter what I do, I never seem to get it right.”

“They're like hens at a pecking party. Anyone different, anyone who stands out, gets the full treatment. Just be yourself and never mind what anyone thinks.”

Joanne caught sight of her husband across the room.

“It's not my feelings that matter.”

Standing at the bar with his cronies, he was watching her. Another whisky was shoved into his hand and Bill Ross turned back to his new friends. Joanne shivered; an autumnal gust of fear ran through her. She tightened the stole in an attempt to ward off the goose bumps.

The next day being the Sabbath, the band had to pack up at eleven. Tables were cleared, the bar shuttered, and the last of the drinkers went dribbling down the stairs. Joanne was waiting for Bill by the revolving doors. McAllister waved good-bye across the foyer, then disappeared from the pool of light out into the dark street, a cold wind with the promise of rain his companion on the short walk home. He was nearing the corner when a sharp cry cut through the quiet. He turned. Under a streetlight a woman was sprawled backward across a car bonnet.

“Joanne.” McAllister was startled by the intimacy of the scene. He went to intervene, saw she was with her husband, Bill Ross. It was none of his business. He ducked quickly around the corner. He stopped. Coward, he told himself. Went back. By now they were in the car, drawing away from the pavement. He hurried home, cheeks burning in the raw cold night. Aye, he thought, she was right; I'm certainly no knight in shining armor.

The attack had started on the walk to the car when Joanne had instinctively made for the driver's side.

“I'm driving.” Jingling the keys in her face, Bill then shoved her, sending her flying backward onto the car bonnet.

She stifled any protests. Arguing only made it worse. He drove fast, took corners fast, fairly flying across the bridge. Few cars, no cyclists and no police were out this late. They made it home—a miracle. She slunk through the back door, shrinking
herself into as small a target as possible. He tackled her from behind. One arm around her throat, the other hand pulled her round by the hair. Hairpins scattered to the floor. A gargoyle face, a few inches away, spat at her.

“You're no better than a hoor. Showing me up like that.” An overpowering blast of whisky and malice made her try to turn away.

“We had a nice time.” She hated herself for pleading. “It was a lovely dance. You enjoyed it too.”

“You have to show me up, don't you? You just have to be different. Everyone was staring at you. And telling them you made your frock yourself. That la-di-da latest-from-Paris shite.”

The punch caught her square in the middle. She doubled over, gagging, bitter bile filling her mouth. The kick caught her full on the hip, flinging her across the room. She landed awkwardly, one leg buckling under her. Bill had never touched her face nor anywhere that bruises might show. Curled up, she kept muttering, “Sorry, sorry.” He always stopped when she capitulated.

“Here. Have it. Have the lot.” He threw a flurry of banknotes, followed by a painful shower of coins. “Go on. Get a fur coat, the best you can find. I'll no have a wife o' mine show me up.”

She didn't move until she heard the car leave. Every breath was painful. She gathered the banknotes, put them in the tea caddy, glad that there was enough to buy the girls new winter boots. She clutched the banisters, hauling herself up the stairs, her hip stiff with pain where the kick had landed.

In Annie's bedroom, the chest of drawers dragged across the door, spoiled dress abandoned like a discarded dishrag on the floor, in the too small bed, she lay there, silent, sore, all crying done, smelling the comforting fragrance of child, drifting down into sleep, her last thought: Thank goodness my pearls didn't break.

T
HREE
 
 

All that Rob knew about war came from watching Pathé newsreels in the cinema. In front of him, the desolate scene of the tinkers' camp emerging from the haar reminded him of images of displaced peoples in makeshift encampments strewn all over Europe. Caravans, lorries, vans formed a semicircle. Picked-over carcasses of skeletal vehicles hovered around the outside, ghosts at the feast. Traditional dwellings, “benders,” made from birch saplings and tarpaulins sealed with tar, huddled near the mounds of scrap metal, rubbish, smoldering fires and washing lines. Children, chickens and mangy dogs roamed, hungry scavengers picking through the bones of the camp. The northern boundary, the municipal dump, was alive with a coronet of circling seagulls. The railway line marked the southern boundary. Westward, multiplying industrial warehouses were creeping over the remaining fertile land. Eastward, coastal mudflats and salt marshes seethed with wintering birds, greylag geese competing for the lush grass with forty or so horses. This was the winter quarters of the travelers, the Summer Walkers, as they called themselves; the tinkers, tinks as the townsfolk called them when they wanted to perpetuate the myth of a child-stealing, curse-laying, thieving, outcast, scourge-of-Scotland race of outsiders. Fear, that's what his father had told Rob. In the past the Traveling people were respected for their skills, their music; they were, are, a vital part of agricultural life in the Highlands, he told his son.

Rob stood beside his bike in the gusting breeze, coming all
the way from the Atlantic and the Isles, blowing down the faultline of the Great Glen to meet the North Sea.

“Hiya, is your dad here?” A girl, seven or eight, appeared, stared at the stranger, mouth open, a clot of yellow snot hovering above her top lip. A boy, twelve or thirteen, materialized and stood staring, mesmerized by the shiny red motorbike.

“Can I have a shot on yer bike?”

“Hop on. Then I'd like to speak to your father.”

Once around the fields, with a spurt of speed on the last hundred yards, they skidded to a stop. The boy jumped off and ran.

“Hey, we had a deal,” Rob shouted.

“On your own heid be it then.” The lad disappeared into one of the larger caravans. A man emerged from the doorway.

“Away with ye! Get the hell out o' here.”

Dogs circled, barking, snapping at Rob's boots, peeing their territory on a wheel as he sat astride the bike. Children joined in with whooping war cries. A stone flew past; another landed close by. Rob's new friend watched, laughing. A shout from the man in what Rob took to be Gaelic and the boy took off across the fields toward the ponies. Looking back, he gave Rob a cheery wave, his red hair a beacon in all the surrounding shades of gray.