Stormy Petrel (5 page)

‘I can imagine. You said you knew that Mrs Hamilton had died?'

‘As it happens, yes. I hired my boat on Faarsay – that's a little island south of Mull – and they'd heard about Mrs Hamilton, but they didn't know my folks, so no one told me our house was let.'

‘I – yes, I see. Well, I'm sorry you had to find out this way.'

A pause. There seemed to be nothing else to say. The water dripped steadily from his anorak to make a puddle on the floor. He looked pale and, I thought, tired and rather lost. I said crisply: ‘Give me the kettle. You look as if you could do with a hot drink, and as a matter of fact, so could I.' I carried the kettle into the other room, plugged it in and switched on. ‘What'll you have, coffee? Tea? Cocoa? I'm not stocked up with strong drink yet, I'm afraid. Why don't you take that wet anorak off and get the fire going again while I make the drinks?'

He did as I suggested, dropping the wet clothes into a corner by the back door. ‘Well, God bless this house. It's very good of you to take it like this. I'm sorry if I gave you a fright. The coal's still kept just outside the back door?'

‘Yes, but I brought some in earlier; it's in that bucket there, and there's peat there, too, and it's dry. I suppose you're used to peat fires? You can show me how. Are you sure cocoa will do?'

‘If there's coffee, I'd rather have that, please. Yes, instant would be fine. Thanks.' He came in from the scullery with the coal bucket in one hand and in the other a fat metal cylinder. ‘I'll certainly show you, but didn't you know about this?'

‘Don't tell me it's a gas poker? How wonderful! Where was it?'

‘At the back of the cupboard. We hardly ever used it, but it's a great standby, and very quick.' He dumped the cylinder down by the sitting-room hearth and knelt to stack peat and coal over the cold core of the fire. The kettle boiled and I made the drinks and followed him through to set the mugs down on the low table near the fireplace.

‘Do you take sugar? Will that really burn?'

‘Yes, please. Yes, indeed, given time, it will burn well. This always was a good fire. They have changed the fireplace, but the chimney will be the same, and it burns hot. You will see.'

‘Incidentally, were you hoping to get a meal here? Because I'm afraid that all I've got at the moment—'

‘No, no, that's OK. The drink will do fine. I've got this to help it, anyway.' He took the mug I handed him, then produced a flask from his pocket, and tipped a generous measure into his mug. He held the flask out to me, but I shook my head. The fire caught the peat and spread into a warming glow. Feeling as if I was still asleep and having a very curious dream, I settled myself on the other side of the hearth from the stranger and took a sip of cocoa. It is a simple drink, but wonderfully heartening.

‘My name's Rose Fenemore,' I said, ‘and I'm from Cambridge.'

‘Mine's Ewen Mackay, from Moila, but it's a long, long time since I was here. You're taking this very well, Rose Fenemore. Some women would have come downstairs with the poker at the ready.'

‘I might have done, only I'm expecting my brother to join me, I don't quite know when. I was too sleepy to wonder how he'd managed, at this time of night.' I glanced at the window. ‘Did you really bring a boat across tonight in that?'

‘Why not? Rounding the Horn is worse.' He laughed. ‘As a matter of fact, the really nasty bit was when I was walking across here, coming over the head of the cliff there with the wind trying to blow me out to sea again.'

‘Over the cliff? The headland? Then you didn't put into the bay here?'

‘No. With the wind and the tide this way it's too tricky to bring a boat in here. There's a little cove about halfway between here and the big house – the Hamilton house. It's a safe mooring in any weather, and the nearest to home.'

The last word fell queerly in the little room, with the fire burning cosily and the insistent sounds of the storm at the window. I sipped cocoa, and wondered how and when I would be able to turn him out into the night again. Or even if. The windows, black as pitch, were streaming with water, and from time to time doors and windows rattled as if the cottage were under attack. I would not have put a stray dog out into such a night.

And the man, apparently, still regarded the place as ‘home'. Well, Rose Fenemore, now might be the time to broaden your outlook a little. I could name at least three of my friends who would have been prompt to offer this undeniably attractive young man a doss-down on the sofa, and one of them who would have already been thinking of taking him upstairs for the night . . .

He was saying something about the Hamilton house, a question.

‘I'm sorry?' I said.

‘I asked if you had been over there yet?'

‘No.'

‘You should go. It's quite a good path over the cliff there, and the island with the broch is worth a visit. There's a nice bay there, too, very sheltered. You can take a boat in there most times, except at low water, but it can be awkward then, and in this weather . . . Anyway, I tucked my boat in snugly at Halfway House – the cove – and walked over to Taigh na Tuir. That's what they call the Hamilton place.'

‘Yes, I know.'

‘I just wanted to see it again.' He reached forward to turn off the gas poker and add a couple of peats to the fire. ‘Even though I knew there was no one there. And even if they hadn't told me, I would have known. She never slept well, and she used to read half the night. It seemed queer to me to see the windows all dark and the curtains still not drawn . . . I don't think I believed it till then, that she was gone, I mean. You might say that Taigh na Tuir was as much home to me as this was. More. I was over there most days when I was a boy.'

‘Mrs McDougall – no, I think it was Archie McLaren – told me that your father looked after the garden there.'

‘My foster-father.' That emphasis again. ‘I was adopted. Did they not tell you that? It was never a secret. Yes, he worked at the House, and so did my mother. But they – the Colonel and Mrs Hamilton – they had no family, only a brother who lived abroad all the time, and, well, they treated me like a son, or grandson, rather. It was the Colonel himself who taught me how to shoot, and I always went with him for the fishing. The way they were with me, I sometimes wondered—'

He broke off. A quick flash of a glance from those blue eyes, then he turned away.

‘You wondered?'

‘Nothing. Nothing at all . . .' He stirred the peats, the Gaelic suddenly strong in his voice. ‘But it's a strange feeling to be robbed of both homes all in the same wild night.'

Celtic twilight, I thought. Is he dramatising all this a bit, for sympathy and a bed for the night, or is this the normal way of the Gael? The chill little touch of criticism roused me. Stray dog or no stray dog, I wanted him to go. I sat up in my chair.

‘I'm sorry. I really am. But –'

He smiled at me suddenly, the same flash of charm. ‘And that was not a hint for you to offer me a bed for the night, Miss Rose Fenemore. You've been very kind, and I'm good and dry now, and I've slept on the boat many's the time before, and in worse nights than this. The wind's dropping a bit, anyhow, and she'll be all safe and snug in Halfway House. I'll maybe get round to the harbour in the morning, and have a talk with Mrs McDougall. Here, let me wash the mugs up for you first.'

‘No, really, they're nothing. Give me yours.'

As I got up to take it from him, there was a sharp rapping at the front door. In the time it took me to turn my head, Ewen Mackay came upright, and a hand moved – incredibly – towards a pocket. It was a movement I had seen a hundred times on television, but never before in real life. For real life, visit Moila, the island of the ivory tower.

His hand dropped. I said, feebly: ‘Would you answer the door, please? And if it's my brother, don't shoot him.'

He didn't smile. He gave me a sideways look that was curiously disconcerting, and went to the door.

It opened on a rush of air. Outside stood a young man in oilskins, the hood blowing back from a soaking tangle of brown hair blackened by the rain, and one hand gripping a duffel bag.

Ewen Mackay stood back for him to enter. ‘Do come in. The kettle's just on the boil. Mr Fenemore, I presume?'

The newcomer came in on a gust of the storm. He stood dripping on the rug while Ewen Mackay shut the door behind him. ‘What?' he asked. He blinked at the light as if it hurt him. His eyes were bloodshot, presumably with the wind, and he looked dazed.

‘Your brother made it after all,' said Ewen Mackay to me, but I shook my head.

‘I've never seen him before in my life,' I said.

6

‘I'm terribly sorry to butt in like this.' The newcomer looked from Ewen Mackay to me and back again. He was, understandably, taking us for a couple whose holiday idyll he had interrupted, though why we should be sitting by the fire at that hour, with me in a not very elegant dressing gown and Ewen in stained jeans and a guernsey it would be hard to imagine. Something of the sort was getting through to him. He paused, and finished, uncertainly: ‘My tent was blown away, and some of my stuff with it. I tried to chase it, but it was no good in the dark, and I went clear into a bog, and in the end I saw your light, so I picked up what was left and came along. If I might just wait here till the storm passes, till daylight, perhaps, and then try again to track my things down?'

‘Well, of course,' said Ewen Mackay warmly, before I could speak. I looked at him in surprise, but he ignored me. ‘Come right in and get those wet things off. A shocker, isn't it? We were just having a hot drink. Join us?'

‘Thank you. It's good of you. I'd like that.' He was shedding his wet things as he spoke, and a glance at me indicated who was supposed to hurry off and get him the hot drink.

I found my voice. I gave Ewen a chilly glance. ‘If you're the host, you make the drink. You know where the kettle is.'

The newcomer looked surprised, but Ewen took it without a blink. In fact, he smiled. ‘Of course.' Then, to the other man: ‘My name's Mackay, by the way, and this is Rose Fenemore. There's coffee if you'd like it, and it doesn't have to be totally harmless, if you prefer something a bit stronger?'

‘Whatever there is. Coffee would be great. Thank you. It's very good of you.' He dumped his things on a chair near the door, and came to the fire, hands spread out to the warmth. ‘My name's Parsons. John Parsons.' He spoke over my head to the scullery door, where Ewen was refilling the kettle. He obviously still took us for a couple holidaying together, and his embarrassment at intruding took the form of ignoring my presence.

I was busy wondering why Ewen Mackay, by playing host, had taken such pains to foster that impression. It was hard to see a reason. A stab of male vanity, perhaps? Discovered alone in a remote cottage with a young female whose brother had once described her as ‘a don, alas, but a dish when she takes the trouble,' had he quite deliberately misled the newcomer? Or, to take it further, had he begun to have hopes for the remainder of the night, and so taken this means to get rid of the other man? My own vanity, such as it was, could not accept any of this; in that dressing gown, and with my hair all over the place, I was hardly something that a chance-met man would want to lay claim to.

‘Milk and sugar?' Ewen, still the charming host, was pouring hot water.

Mr Parsons had turned to stand with his back to the fire, the eternal male hogging the best place in the room. ‘Great. Yes, both, thanks.' He accepted the steaming mug from the other man, then addressing him, and still ignoring me: ‘Are you on holiday, or do you live here?'

I caught Ewen Mackay's swift glance as he resumed his place on the other side of the fireplace. His look was faintly apologetic. As well it might be, I thought. As an exercise, even of vanity, it had been pointless. Had he really thought that I would play along? Out of sheer curiosity I held my tongue, and waited.

He stretched out a foot to the fire, stirring the peats. ‘I did live here years ago. I was brought up here. But just at present I'm like you, an orphan of the storm. Miss Fenemore gave me shelter, too.'

‘Oh. Really. I see.' Mr Parsons looked down at me at last, and I could see a different embarrassment replacing the first as he met my ironic eye. ‘Well, Miss Er, it's awfully good of you. Quite an invasion. I'm terribly sorry to be such a nuisance.'

‘Think nothing of it. Where are you camping, Mr Er?'

For a moment I thought I had gone too far. In the grey eyes regarding me through the steam of the coffee I saw a spark that might have been amusement. It might equally well have been annoyance – John Parsons the macho male being quietly baited by the nonentity by the fireside.

Then it was gone and he answered mildly: ‘On the machair. But with the wind this way it's next to impossible.' Back to Ewen. ‘You lost your tent, too?'

‘Not a tent. I've a boat. I tied up in a cove west of here, just beyond the headland.'

I asked: ‘Can you really see the lights of this cottage from the machair?'

A perceptible pause, as Mr Parsons turned and set his mug down on the mantelpiece. ‘I doubt it. But when I saw it tonight I had just struggled as far as the road. Why?'

‘I just wondered.'

‘Whereabouts on the machair?' asked Ewen. ‘Pretty exposed for camping, I would have thought. Or were you near the House?'

‘Which house?'

‘The locals – we – call it the Big House. Or just the House. The one opposite the island where the broch is.'