O Caledonia (9 page)

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

Winter descended on the glen; in mid-October came the first thin fall of snow, gone an hour later in the wet wind. The deer ventured down from the hills at dusk, tawny owls shrieked as they hunted through the darkness and shooting stars fled across the night sky. Leafless, the beeches and ashes shivered; the grass was parched with cold; pine and monkey-puzzle stood black and dominant. Only the red earth of the hill tracks retained its colour; the puddles looked like pools of blood.

Of all the seasons this was the one Janet loved most. In the afternoons she would ride up through the forest on to the lonely moors; she felt then, looking into the unending distance of hills ranged beyond hills, that if only she had the courage to go on she, like True Thomas, might reach a fairyland, another element, the place of the ballads, of ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci'. But as the light ebbed away to a pang of sullen gold on the horizon she would turn back. Often it was too dark for her to see the way down through the forest, but Rosie stepped briskly onwards, never faltering, never stumbling, until they reached the eerie cobbled stable yard. The stables were almost derelict. The roof of the central tower had fallen in and willow herb grew in profusion from the coach house. Once there had been stalls and loose boxes for twenty horses; now only one small part was safe to use, but it offered snug winter quarters for Rosie. Janet lingered, listening to the steady munch of hay, the rustle as the pony turned in her deep straw bed; through the cobwebbed window she watched the moon rise, the stars come out. The air grew warm. It was the most peaceful place
she knew; she would have liked to stay there all night. At last she made her way up the back drive through the looming trees to the great glowing windows of Auchnasaugh; she walked slowly then, for she loved this moment. No matter how many times she did it, it always filled her with a strange and intense excitement, the traveller coming home through cold and darkness, returned from a great distance and after many days, moving silent and unseen towards the lighted windows.

One November afternoon Vera and Nanny took Lulu and Janet to the dentist. The dentist was in Aberdeen, forty miles away, an unending journey by car. Before they left they had to clean their shoes, brown StartRite walking shoes, taking the laces out and laboriously rethreading them when Nanny had approved the gleaming leather. By this point Janet was already feeling sick. Whenever they went anywhere by car they had to clean their shoes; as Janet was sick every eight miles, sometimes sooner, the merest whiff of shoe polish, the sight of a polish brush, the texture of a yellow duster sent her stomach into churning mutiny. After the shoe ritual they were clamped into their good tweed coats with velvet collars, berets were jammed on their heads, gloves found and they were off.

Lulu looked charming, her blonde hair waving prettily beneath the navy blue beret; Janet
'
s beret was dark green and did nothing to enhance her complexion. It kept slipping sideways; she pulled it firmly on to her forehead where it made a tight welt and pushed her eyebrows downwards, giving her a fierce Neanderthal look. Vera wore her driving headscarf, printed with the flags of the allied nations and bearing the slogan
‘
Into Battle
'
, many times repeated. She drove with verve, anxious to minimise the number of times they would have to stop for Janet to be sick. They had tried travel pills, they had tried dragging a degrading chain behind the car, leaving all the windows open, putting Janet in the front, all to no avail. Nanny had banned her from eating anything red or orange for twenty-four hours before any journey on the grisly
premise that this was the cause. ‘I've aye noticed it when the bairn spews up.' No good. Now a new theory was abroad. Constance had said that Janet must stop thinking about herself, must concentrate on others or at least on other things. ‘You've no difficulty the rest of the time in concentrating; you can learn your Latin and your poetry, so really, speaking candidly, I think you've just got to get out of yourself; take an interest in the landscape, talk to the family, play spelling games.' The crime of self-centredness had been added to the miseries of her condition. She always looked at the landscape anyhow; she was far better at spelling than her brother and sisters, so games with them were boringly limited. And she didn't want to talk to her family; she couldn't think of anything to say to them. Instead she silently rehearsed a poem which had made her laugh so much that tears came out of her eyes when she discovered it the previous evening.

 

It was a summer evening,

Old Caspar's work was done,

And he before his cottage door

Was sitting in the sun.

Before him sported on the green

His little grandchild, Wilhelmine...

 

It occurred to her now that Lulu looked pretty much like Old Caspar's awful little grandchild. Lulu turned, caught Janet's broadly grinning and sarcastic stare and pinched her sharply on the calf. Janet pinched her back, harder. A silent struggle ensued; then, ‘Mummy, Mummy, Janet's pinching me.' ‘Miserable little clipe,' muttered Janet, subsiding to the far end of the seat. She stared out of the rain-dashed window, where the light was already fading. They were passing out of the hills, over the crossroads, towards the bare stone-walled pasturelands where the few trees hunched and bent inland, straining away from the bitter blast of the sea wind, their branches clawing vainly for the shelter of the glens. The hills stood enigmatic and shadowy, guarding their own.

 

Lady, weeping at the crossroads

Would you meet your love

In the twilight with his greyhounds

And his hawk on his glove?

 

thought Janet, looking back at them with a strange yearning. She felt that she was being borne away from the lands of high romance and magic towards a bleak world of making do and commerce and department stores and petrol fumes; headscarves and gabardines. Looking at that grim and vengeful sea she could imagine the satisfaction with which it had disposed of Sir Patrick Spens' lords and their plumy hats and their cork-heeled shoon.

 

Then up rose the mermaiden

Wi' a comb and glass in her hand

Here's a health to you my merrie young men

For you never will see dry land.

 

Was the mermaiden drinking the blood-red wine or was she somehow holding a mirror and looking in it amid the green billows?

There was a clicking noise beside her and a rush of cold air. The far door was swinging open. Lulu was gone. Silently Janet leaned across and closed the door. She sat rigid, her mind spinning. ‘Oh God,' she prayed, ‘bring her back, let no one notice, let them not blame me.' How long would they not notice? Could she jump out? They were driving along the stretch of cliff road above the dreadful caves once inhabited by Sawney Bean and his descendants. Sawney Bean had run away with a maid from the great house where they both worked; they were wanted for theft; they would be hanged. They hid in these caves and kept themselves diverted and alive by making man-traps on the high road to Aberdeen and consuming their prey. When the law finally tracked them down they found a pullulating tribe of Beans, mainly the issue of incestuous unions, but still guided by the patriarchal Sawney. Smoked
black flitches and plump haunches of human flesh were suspended from the cavern walls drying, in the salt breeze; the babies cut their teeth on finger bones. They were all burned in Aberdeen market square, the last cannibals in Europe. Or so it was said. Janet wished that one of Sawney
'
s man-traps would gape open in the road and the car plummet into it. Anything rather than the doom which waited for her.

 

Rise again Sawney Bean, Sawney Bean, Sawney Bean,

Rise again Sawney Bean, come from your cave and eat me

 

squeaked a mad voice in the back of her brain. The car slowed for the first traffic lights of Aberdeen. Vera glanced back, grimly helmeted by the
‘
Into Battle
'
scarf.
‘
Lulu, sit up!
'
she commanded.
‘
Lulu, what are you doing? Are you down on the floor? Get up at once. Janet,
where is LULU?
‘
She got out,
'
said Janet. Her gorge rose.
‘
A while ago,
'
she said and vomited mightily.

In the event things were not so bad as she had feared. They found Lulu, muddy and grazed, soaked through and without her beret, sitting on a roadside bank surrounded by a comforting group of farm workers and their bicycles. She was holding court and showed no particular pleasure in Vera
'
s fervent embrace or Nanny
'
s insistence that she travel home in the front, on her knee. In fact, she said she wanted to go on to the dentist so that they could have tea at Fuller
'
s in Union Street afterwards. For a moment Janet was roused from her sombre apprehensions by this redeeming notion. Fuller
'
s was the good thing about trips to the dentist. With faces frozen by the sleety wind and the jaw-scrunching needle they would step from the granite street and the granite sky into a warm lamplit haven. The carpets were pink and dense so that you moved soundlessly; there were no windows; you could forget the outer world. Teaspoons clinked on porcelain saucers, tiered stands shone, laden with the snowy glory of Fuller
'
s walnut cake. Reverently the waitress raised the silver dome from a fragrant mound of buttered toast, flaccid and dribbling with amber rivulets.
‘
Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
'
thought Janet. And, like that heavenly vision, unattainable. For the numb jaw and tongue, the rubbery lip, flawed and mortal, could not cope. But it was enough to sit in that rosy hush and feel its benediction, watch the hard faces of the women in their hats grow gentle and animated. Fox tippets were discarded, carelessly slung on chair backs so that their glassy eyes and snappy jaws were invisible. There was twinkling, there were indiscreet confidences and girlish laughter. Extravagant quantities of tea were drunk, lavish tips lurked coyly beneath emptied salvers. Men did not come here. Once Vera had lured Hector in on the grounds that it was his duty to help her cope with five children. As they emerged from the Ladies
'
Room they saw Hector staring moodily at a light fitting while baby Caro, beside him in a high-chair, poured scalding tea in an unsteady stream on to the pink carpet. Later he had removed the largest chip from Rhona
'
s plate and placed it on his shoulder; then he waited through the rest of the sacred hour for someone to ask him why he had a chip on his shoulder. No one tried to get him into Fuller
'
s again.

But today it was back to Auchnasaugh in the deepening murk. The appointment would have to be rearranged, the car must be swilled out before Hector saw it. If they were quick they might catch Jim the hunchbacked gardener before he went home. Jim would not mind; after all he spent most of his life involved in blood, guts, dung and effluvia. Janet could run in the back way and see if he was in the kitchen having his tea; she would have to explain the situation; it was her fault anyhow.

To Janet
'
s relief Miss Wales was not in the kitchen but to her chagrin Jim was. He was huddled over the little side table gazing intently at a magazine. In one hand he held his Jammy Piece; the other hand was scratching his stomach. When Janet spoke he gave an almighty start and shoved the magazine behind the teapot.
‘
Ech,
'
he observed, shambling to his feet, buttoning his clothes.
‘Ech
,
'
he spat in the sink and went out into the darkness
, leaving behind a gamey whiff of sweat and dried blood and stale tobacco. Janet tiptoed over to the teapot and extracted the magazine. She was horrified; it was full of disgusting pictures of women with no clothes on. To think anyone could want to look at things like that. She was overwhelmed with shame. She lifted up the Aga lid and stuffed it into the glowing depths, prodding and pushing with the poker until at last the pages caught, blazed up, turned to grey powder. She fled from the kitchen.

It was time for prep. Arithmetic prep. What a dreadful day. She hated arithmetic and was spectacularly bad at it. Year in, year out, new maths masters spoke kindly to her about her special difficulties. Each assured her that with his guidance she would understand; she must not worry any more. She didn't worry; she just went on hating it, went on failing to grasp any concept more advanced than simple fractions and percentages. Geometry was also boring, abstract and incomprehensible but at least she could learn the theorems by heart and have the tiny pleasure of writing QED and being done with them. Algebra was less awful because there were letters mingled with the numbers and there was even something satisfying about tracking down the identity of the mysterious
x.
But tonight, after half an hour of futile conjecture about how long various baths would take to empty or fill, her head had become a bombinating vacuum. With relief she turned to English. They had been reading ‘Sohrab and Rustum' and now they were to learn the closing passage. This was wonderful, so wonderful that later, when Hector and Vera were giving her a serious talk about responsibility, duty and caring for others, she heard their voices only as ‘the mist and hum of that low land', while she floated with the majestic river ‘into the frosty starlight And there moved rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste.' The hush'd Chorasmian waste!