Blackstone's Pursuits (14 page)

‘About a year.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘What’s serious when you’re fifty-eight? Sure, the old loins still catch fire from time to time, but the difference is that you’re less likely to go hunting for the matches. No, pal, by that time your preoccupation is with the prospect of going into old age alone.

‘Mary and I have known each other for donkey’s years. Truth be told, I’ve cast an eye over her for most of that time, but while your mother was alive, and Alex More was around there was never any thought, on either side, of any ... any, misbehaving.

‘Things have changed now. We’re both single, for different reasons. After a while, well, it just happened. Now, I think Mary’s happy enough, and she sure keeps me on the straight and narrow. Her basket would be full if Jan ... but I suppose not.’

I shook my head. ‘Not much chance of that, Dad, I don’t think.’

‘No? Ach well ...’

‘Does Jan know about ... ?’ I asked, hesitantly.

‘No. If she did, d’you think she’d have said nothing to you?’

I shook my head. ‘D’you think you’ll get married?’

He looked at me, frankly. ‘If we do, you’ll be the first to know. But come on, boy, don’t sit here any longer. Get away upstairs before that lass forgets what you look like.’

‘Come on, Dad. We’re not at that stage yet.’ I pushed myself out of my chair. ‘I am off to bed, though. See you after your surgery. Maybe we’ll hit a few balls, eh. I’ll see what Prim says.’ A wonderful thought struck me. ‘Hey, maybe she plays golf!’

I saw the light still shining under the bathroom door as I reached the top of the stairs. I tapped the door and Prim opened it, swathed in one of the towels. Her hair was hand-dried and stood up in spikes. Her face was scrubbed shiny; without a trace of make-up her eyes seemed even bigger, her lips fuller. I thought she was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen in my life. Come to think of it, I still do.

She smiled at me and pulled me into the bathroom. She’d been as good as her word. The bubbles were clearing, but the bath was still steaming gently. ‘In you go, if you want. I’ll still be awake, if you want to say goodnight.’ She stood in the doorway, smiling.

‘The water’s okay, is it?’ I said. ‘You didn’t pee in it or anything?’

She giggled. ‘Of course I did! But you love me, don’t you?’ She pulled the door closed behind her.

Her body was still hot from the tub, like mine, when I slipped into my room and sat on the edge of the bed. I stroked her cheek as she lay on the pillow. ‘Do you want me to pull the curtains?’ I asked her.

‘No,’ she said, drowsily. I kissed her forehead, and as I did I looked into her heavy eyes, and felt sleep begin to take me too. ‘Goodnight, then,’ I whispered in her ear. ‘Oh yes. I almost forgot to ask. Do you play golf?’

In which we play seventeen holes and the Jag stays on the road.

She does, of course. Pretty well too. We were lucky to get a threesome off at Elie on a Saturday afternoon, but my Dad’s been a member there since God was a boy.

Elie Golf House Club has to be the only course in the world with a submarine periscope built into its starter’s hut. No. I’m not joking. A submarine periscope.

We were waved off, and my Dad clumped an awkward drive halfway up the face of the hill, 100 yards in front of the first tee, which makes the contraption necessary. Prim and I, sharing my clubs - the Nissan’s boot serves as a locker for all my sports gear -- clipped our shots safely over the direction post, and we were off.

The quirky old course, spread out on its three fields, unfolded itself for us in the afternoon sun. Our golf was pure mince but we didn’t care. It was a nice afternoon, if a bit windy, and Prim and my Dad got on like a house on fire. Eventually, like many an Elie golfer, we decided to skip the eighteenth hole and go straight to the nineteenth. The old Golf Tavern has changed less, probably than any pub I know. My Dad still calls it ‘Elrick’s’, although that licensee has been gone from it since I was a child.

I got them in, and we sat at a table in the window, crunching crisps and playing dominoes.

‘So what’s this story,’ said my Dad, slamming down the double five, ‘that you were going to tell me? What brought you up here?’

I looked at Prim. She nodded.

‘Okay, but we better finish the dominoes, ’cause it’ll put you right off your game.’

‘Nonsense. You could poke me in both eyes with a sharp stick and you still couldn’t beat me at Doms. Come on, tell me your story.’

‘If you insist. After you’ve got them in.’

He shook his head. ‘My God! Does everything have a price?’ He stood up and took the single step across to the high bar counter. He was no sooner back with two pints of Deuchars and a small whisky for him than the door creaked open. The Golf Tavern is a great place for old bodgers. This one had a dog, a great, fat, slavering labrador. It was the sort of dog you find at one time or another in every country pub, its function being to see its master home in time for supper.

The old bodger turned out to be a patient. ‘Hello Mac,’ he hailed, the red capillaries standing out on his nose. ‘Don’t see you along here very often. Glad I bumped into you. Had this terrible bloody ache for a week now.’ He hauled his loose lips wide apart to reveal a yellow canine of which the lab would have been ashamed. Half an hour and two more dog walkers later, we made it back to Dad’s elderly Jag, parked outside the clubhouse. ‘Jesus!’ he spluttered, as he eased himself behind the big dish of the steering wheel. ‘No wonder I don’t come along here too often. One of them in there actually asked me to look at his fucking dog! Did you hear him?’

He shoved the lever into Drive and eased smoothly out of the car park, up through Elie, past the grey church, and out of the village. ‘Right,’ he said as Prim, in the back seat, pointed to the jagged shape of the Lady’s Tower, ‘let’s have your story.’

And so I told him. Everything. From the moment when I found the late Willie Kane, to the time when we interrupted his coitus. The only part that I left out was my flash of insight about the identity of the killer. I didn’t think Prim was ready for that.

I was about eight when I found out what ‘phlegmatic’ meant. ‘It’s what your father is,’ said my Mum, and I understood. The Jag only looked like swerving off the road once, when I told him about meeting Miles Grayson in the Falls of Lora. ‘Did you get his autograph?’ asked the old movie buff.

‘As a matter of fact I did.’ I smiled at Prim. ‘Bet you thought I was kidding when I said it was for my Dad.’

He was silent for the rest of the drive home. I knew better than to interrupt him. Mac the Dentist is a great ponderer. When he’s come to a view he’ll share it with the world, but while it’s hatching in his brain, best to leave him alone.

We didn’t go back into the house at once. Instead Dad motioned us over to his long green garden seat, positioned at the top of the lawn. We sat down, Prim between us. There was a big black tanker making its way out to sea, riding low in the water with its cargo of oil. He pointed to it. ‘See that thing? When I was a young man, if anyone had told me that one day we’d be exporting oil from this river, I’d have told him he was off his fucking head. Now we take it for granted. But when it’s all gone, we’ll miss it.’ He sat silent for a minute or so longer, then dug Prim in the ribs. ‘You still got that fiver then?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you, boy. You don’t trust this man Archer, do you?’ I hadn’t told him that.

‘If I were you, I’d go back to see him one more time. Tell him you think Prim’s sister has the fiver, and that you’re looking for her. See how he reacts, then decide what to do.’

‘What are my choices?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Say “Bugger it”, give up on the reward, go to the police, tell them the whole story and give them the fiver. That’s what a sensible man would have done by now. Or, come clean with Archer, go and collect his dough, and take your cut. Or, and daftest of all, keep it to yourself, and once you’ve found Prim’s sister and covered her backside, go to Switzerland, pick up the money and then make up your mind what to do with it.’

‘And what would you do?’

‘I, oh Mighty Oz? What would I do?’ His face creased into a sly grin. ‘I’ve never been accused of being too sensible, have I!’

He jumped to his feet. ‘Come on, you two. The day presses on, and we have a date. Mary phoned this morning while you were still out of it, and bade us all to dinner at her place.’

In which Mac the Dentist gives us some good advice, and I become a lighthouse keeper.

It had been years since I’d dined at Auntie Mary’s, and then I’d been too much of an airhead to appreciate what a wonderful cook she is. We ate salmon terrine that she’d made herself, braised venison from an estate a few miles away, garnished with peas straight from the pod, carrots and new potatoes, all home-grown, and a huge pineapple, quartered and soaked in Benedictine. Fortunately we’d taken a couple of decent bottles of wine with us, not Dad’s usual supermarket crap. That would have tasted like vinegar alongside Mary’s gourmet meal.

The table talk avoided relationships. Instead Prim told us tales of Africa, I told us tales of accidental comedy among my witness interviews, and Dad told us tales of dental dereliction. I watched him as the evening went on. The old bugger had his feet under the table, no doubt about that.

Auntie Mary brought out the port with the coffee and truffles. Damn good stuff it was too. Dad took to it, for sure. After his second glass he was clearly on his way. I wasn’t worried about a slide back to the bottle. Before Mum died, he had always enjoyed a good bevvy as a form of fellowship. He had been a happy drunk, one who used alcohol to enhance enjoyment rather than drive away worries. It was funny, but looking at him across the table, I was actually pleased to see him getting pleasantly pissed. It was just like old times. Mary might as well have been my Mum, except, although I feel disloyal in admitting this, she’s a better cook.

At last the port bottle was down to only the dregs. Dad toyed with the idea of finishing it, but thought better of it. He muttered something about the eye of a needle at thirty paces and put the bottle down. Suddenly he leaned across the table and took Prim’s hand. ‘Tell me, my dear,’ he said, heavy-lidded. ‘What are you going to do t’morrow?’

Prim looked at him, smiling lightly, her cheeks slightly red from the port. ‘What do you think I should do, Mac?’

‘I think you should go and see your Mum.’

The smile left her lips. She frowned uncertainly.

‘Listen, love,’ said my wise old father. ‘You owe it to her. It’s her right to worry about her daughter; goes with the position of parent. If there’s cause for her to be anxious, she won’t thank you for keeping it from her. Most of us old yins are capable of facing up to life, you know, whatever it throws at us.’

She looked at him for a while, and the smile came back. ‘You’re right, aren’t you. I was treating her as if she was in her dotage. Okay, tomorrow we’re off to Auchterarder. Apart from anything else, it’s time she found out what her older daughter’s up to!’

Dad nodded, and rattled the port bottle again. I took my cue, and stood up. ‘Mary, that was wonderful, but it’s time we were off.’ Prim stood up and took my hand as I stepped round the table.

‘Coming, Dad?’ I said.

‘No, no. Think I’ll hang on here for a wee while.’ He glanced across at Auntie Mary. She answered his slightly raised eyebrow with a nod.

The door was almost closed when he called after me. ‘Tell you what, Oz. Be a good lad and put my bedroom light on for a wee while. Just to keep the neighbours happy, you understand.’

It might have been no more than the creaking of a chair, but as I closed the door, I was sure that I heard him fart.

In which we find she who wasn’t lost at all, in which I experience the full glory of a Scottish Sabbath, from which we make an escape, and in which something very unpleasant happens.

To me, Auchterarder isn’t a place at all. It’s a stagecoach halt that’s managed somehow to carry itself over into the twentieth century. It’s something of a dormitory town, I suppose, but its main purpose today seems to be to meet the needs of Gleneagles Hotel, the fat cat up the road; to keep its kitchens filled; to make sure that its golf courses are all in the mint condition that its American and Japanese patrons have been told to expect; to ensure that there’s always a taxi available to run same to and from Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports. Other than that, there isn’t a logical reason for its existence.

Except of course that it’s where Primavera Phillips was raised to womanhood. That makes it special.

We drove up the motorway in midmorning - having left a ‘Thanks and see you later,’ note on the kitchen table for my still-absent Dad and took the fast road down from Perth.

‘Our house is on the edge of the town,’ said Prim as we took the turnoff from the A9. ‘It’s a big barn of a place up on the right.’

That was far short of a reasonable description. It struck me at first when I saw it that if it had had the Bates Motel at the foot of the garden, it could have been lifted straight out of
Psycho.
Closer to, I realised that I should have been thinking of the Addams Family. The Phillips homestead is a big spacious villa, with two high storeys and an attic, and a steep roof that must have been a slater’s nightmare when it was built.

‘There you are. Semple House. What d’you think?’ said Prim, smiling, biting her lip, as the Nissan’s tyres scrunched up the red gravel path.

‘You don’t have a butler called Lurch, do you?’

‘Swine!’ she shouted, laughing, and punched my arm. We eased ourselves out of the car and trotted up the six steps to the front door. Prim fumbled in her handbag for her keys. Eventually she found the bunch and fiddled through it for the right one.

She needn’t have bothered. The door swung open ... with an authentic Addams Mansion creak, I was glad to note. Prim looked up, and gasped.