O Caledonia (25 page)

When the mist cleared in early evening the sun shone down from a clear blue sky for the first time in weeks. She fed the cats and then she fed the dogs. Claws and she shared some digestive biscuits and a pot of tea, making a horrible soggy mess which she resolved to clear up later, not now. The kitchen was an enjoyable place without Miss Wales and Jim. She supposed they had been given the weekend off since no one was meant to be here. In the nursery she changed the parrot
'
s water and gave him some more sunflower seeds. It was growing dark, and the evening suddenly seemed to stretch out endlessly before her. She would go and read in her room. But she could not settle. Restless, she paced about. She went down to the drawing room and drew the curtains. She was beginning to feel vulnerable and exposed, a single human being in this great empty place, and not another soul for miles. Not, of course, that there was anything to fear. It was just a strange sensation, like being an ant crawling across a globe. Owls went shrieking by in the blackness. The rose branches fingered the windows. She thought she heard footsteps outside on the grass; she stood rigid. Then a cat mewed. She had forgotten how much noise animals can make at night. The moon had risen; she went outside to look at it. It was almost full and sailing swiftly through great banks of cloud. She felt cold and returned to the drawing room. She decided that a sensible thing to do was to have a drink. It would calm her nerves and warm her. Perhaps then she wouldn
'
t mind being alone, but at present she was not enjoying it.

She selected a bottle of malt whisky on the grounds that it was almost colourless and therefore, she hoped, harmless. She sipped it with misgiving. Crystalline fire flickered through her veins, she gasped, then she was warm. She walked about the drawing room with the drink in her hand, feeling worldly. She finished one glass and poured herself another. She put a record on, a Bach violin quartet. Then she went upstairs with her glass, turning the music to full volume so that she could hear it. She rummaged about in Vera
'
s dressing table; she found lipstick and rouge and mascara. Peering into the mirror, she applied them liberally. Then she hung her head upside down and brushed her hair hard; she shook it back from her face and was pleased to see the electric sparks like fireflies dancing around it. She felt strong and bright and beautiful. Perhaps it was worth being female after all. She anointed herself with Chanel
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s Gardenia, spilling a drop or two into her whisky. Oh well, it would make it taste nicer. It did; she was drinking flowers and fire. No wonder bees worked so hard. Now she lifted Vera
'
s black lace evening dress down from its hanger. It was fastened by a series of tiny hooks and it took her a long time. At last she went to her own room and looked at her reflection in the submarine murk of her new mirror. She was amazed; she was unrecognisable. She closed the door firmly on the protesting jackdaw and set forth down the stairs towards the distant music. When she reached the stone flight she held tightly to the banister, for Vera
'
s high-heeled shoes were slippery and treacherous. But as she passed the stained-glass window thoughts of this or anything else were routed by the wild spirallings of the violins. She was walking down into music made palpable; it swept upwards like a tidal wave and broke over her and engulfed her. In the drawing room she pulled off her shoes and flung them into the corner. She drank some more gardenia-flavoured whisky and sat brooding, suddenly melancholy.
‘
O who would inhabit this bleak world alone?
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she said aloud. She yearned for her love. She had suffered for him. Surely she deserved him. She switched off the violins; they were steeped in pain, torn heart strings of the suffering hopeless world. The moon was high and flooding light through the staircase window. She turned off the hall lamps and watched the crimson and blue and green wash over the grey steps, and the cockatoo cast his rubies over the flagstones. Once again she prayed to the moon. Help me; bring me happiness; bring him to me. The moon beamed on her as she stood below the window. She felt hope revive. The moon had given her a thought. In the drawing room was a copy of Theocritus and in that book was a magic spell for a girl to call her lover to her side. It was addressed to the Moon. The girl was supposed to be spinning, but
tant pis
to that; she could find something to take the place of a spinning wheel. She ran back to the drawing room and found the book. Should she have music? She glanced at the stack of records. The top one was Orpheus and Eurydice. This could not be coincidence. Her hands shook as she set it on the turntable. She took a crystal sphere from the mantelpiece for her substitute wheel. She turned the music high and ran up the stairs to the wide windowsill. There she sat, turning the crystal in her hands as she chanted the spell. The moon lit the pages of the book. The spell was long and complicated and some of it she did not understand. She repeated the choral lines, read the verses, repeated the choral lines, turning the crystal over and over.

 

Shine clear and bright, Moon goddess...

O crystal, bring my beloved to my home...

Think, dear goddess of my love and how it came about...

Bring him hither, bring him home...

Shine clear, shine bright Moon goddess...

 

What is life to me without thee,

What is left if thou art gone...

...What is life without my love?

 

lamented Orpheus as Janet muttered away in the shadows. The further reaches of the hall lay in profound darkness, intensified by the moonlit staircase.

So it was that Janet first saw the male figure as it emerged from deep blackness into lesser blackness. The Moon had granted her wish, had brought her happiness. Crazed and joyful she careered down the stairs and flung herself passionately at the dark figure. There was a dreadful cry of outrage and disgust; she heard a voice hiss,
‘
You filthy wee whore
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, but she did not feel the knife as it stabbed again and again and again. Only a great langour seemed to draw her downwards, slowly falling as Orpheus cried out for her, falling towards the roar of the waters of Avernus.

Jim wiped his rabbit-skinning knife on his trouser leg. He had come in to turn off the music and the lights and so he turned them off. Then he went into the outer darkness. For a long time the castle was silent.

The wild winds of dawn beat about Auchnasaugh, moaning through the treetops and rattling the windowpanes. At last they retreated northwards, bearing with them Janet
'
s spirit, far north of love or grief, until their withdrawing was no more than the sigh of the sea in a shell.