The Green Flash (33 page)

So did I. I said to Shona: ‘ Would you like to come?'

‘If you would wish me to.' I could tell by the way she breathed through her nose that she was pleased.

We went and met Macintyre and the builders and the plumbers and finally agreed the deal. Shona was useful because, aside from being a woman, she had this razor-sharp business instinct which saw through builders' waffle and plumbers' moonshine. But as still happened even now, I found myself edgy about the way she took over.

‘It is not beautiful, I agree. It is on the verge of being ugly. But I do not mind the contrast of styles, the asymmetry, the lack of taste; they are all part of an ancient house, are they not, a house which has grown with the years. In Russia we have houses like this – or had – because they have become a part of the family that has lived there. I do not think you should sell it, David.'

‘You observe the board.'

‘Oh yes, but it can be taken down. Is there
nothing
you can turn to account?'

‘A caravan site?'

‘Heaven forbid. There must be fishing rights. Does none of Loch Ashe belong to you?'

‘One bit. The landing stage. And where the stream comes out.'

‘You shall go into it with Mr Macintyre. You will not wish to live here, of course, but I would have thought somehow the property could be made to pay for itself. You should not cut yourself off so quickly from your own inheritance. Look, the sky is clearing. Let us go for a walk.'

We went as far as the loch, which under the sheepish sun had white water with black rocks reflected in it and two toy boats each propping up a single fisherman. Overhead a few birds circled.

‘It is so
quiet
,' said Shona.

She'd had her hair cut differently for this trip. Shorter at the back, with the front hair dyed and graded a lighter brown, and a wispy fringe. It suited her, made her almost pretty, and outrageously young.

Next morning it was pouring with rain again, but I drove her up north, further than I'd been before, past Loch Assynt and Loch Glencoul. The traffic didn't exist, the road was wide enough only for a single car, with passing places; one loch after another, no end to them; you could hardly have seen better in Norway.

Shona said: ‘This is a deserted land! Why is there no one about? And all these fences! I do not understand.'

We crossed a loch by a ferry big enough to take only two cars. Twenty miles further on we stopped and picnicked in the car off things Mrs Coppell had made up for us, the rain fairly drumming on the roof. After lunch we decided it was far enough, the weather being what it was, and turned back, whereupon the clouds split their sides with laughing and the sun came out.

She was quiet beside me on the way home, watching the land and the lochs being brought out in discreet technicolour. Water was spouting from the hillsides like burst water mains; mountains were the colour of a soldier's camouflage tunic, reeds in the shallower lochs grew out of ink-blue water. I could see she was liking it. As I suppose I was too.

III

She insisted on going to Lochfiern House – or insisted as near as she could without actually getting out the thumbscrew. When we arrived Alison was out.

So a long talk with Lady Abden, and to my surprise the women got on. Shona's reputation and her elegance and personality made her a woman to be reckoned with, and I guess Aunt Helen recognized a kindred and formidable spirit. I wondered how the family would have reacted if my father had wanted to marry a Russian.

One thing I handed to Shona: however much she liked to be boss, she never by so much as a whisker showed any proprietorial attitude towards me. In the early days when we'd been trying to hide it from John she had hit on a style which implied we were simply business colleagues and that still went. But I expect my aunt with her cold clear eyes perceived the cloven hoof.

After a while Shona said: ‘Yesterday we went north, almost as far north as we could go. Why is there no one about? Why is it such a deserted country?'

We were in the upstairs sitting-room again, with the inevitable Lucie squatting like a broody hen by the window; but present today also was Cousin Mary, raffishly dressed in stained tartan but less lubricated than when I'd last seen her.

Lady Abden said: ‘The land has always been deserted, ever since the clearances.'

‘What are those? I do not understand.'

‘At the beginning of the last century it was decided it was profitable to raise sheep in the Highlands. At first they were put on the hills, but when it was found that they could not stand the winter, the glens were cleared to accommodate them and the people driven out.'

‘Driven where to?'

‘To the coast, where they lived in hamlets on the edge of the sea, to the slums of Glasgow and Edinburgh, or to emigrate. All the Highlands were depopulated and have remained so ever since.'

‘And who did this?'

‘Oh, it is a long story. The English. Perhaps more the Lowland Scots. It all goes back to Culloden.'

‘Whist now,' said Mary. ‘ It was Sutherland who started it, and it was all done in the name of progress and reform.' She hiccupped. ‘Since then the deer forests have followed. But the crofters were a shiftless lot, living in squalor, hard to get on with. Unwilling to be helped.'

‘Helped indeed!' said Lucie. ‘You do not help a family by burning the roofs over their heads.'

I said: ‘And what was our part in all this?'

My aunt said: ‘Sir Charles Abden risked ruin to keep his crofters housed and fed. There were others, Protestants as well as Catholics, who did the same. But it did not stop the march of progress, as my daughter calls it. Who was it said: ‘‘Four shepherds and three thousand sheep now occupy the land that once supported five hamlets''?' She rubbed a bony hand across her face. ‘I forget.'

‘And so many fences,' said Shona. ‘They are to keep people out?'

‘To keep animals
in
,' said Mary. ‘ That's natural enough, ain't it?' She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Pardon. But, Mother, the clearances are way back in the past, so far as to have no relevance
any more
. The land is empty because it can support so few – not up to any modern standards. If the clearances had never happened the Highlands would have depopulated themselves!'

The same little maid whose bottom I had once thought of pinching brought us coffee. Shona had said no to sherry because she thought it bad for her touchy liver. I thought, I wonder which baronet Sir Charles was, sixth or seventh? I was thirteenth. That's me, unlucky number, maybe I shall be the last, and good riddance; but you can't kill the damned thing off unless there are no male heirs anywhere. Fourteenth baronet, Hiram K Abden from Oregon or Nova Scotia.

‘What is the motto under the crest?' Shona asked. ‘That in the hall. Under the larger crest.'

It was Lucie who answered. ‘ ‘‘
Creag mo chroidhe-se a chreag ghuanach
.'' It means: ‘‘Rock of my heart, the secure rock.'' '

‘You speak Gaelic?' I said.

‘A little.'

‘We all speak a little,' said my aunt. ‘Not as much as we should.'

‘There are many languages in Russia,' said Shona. ‘Too many, I sometimes think. It makes for lack of communication and understanding.'

‘That is what many Scotsmen have felt,' my aunt said sourly. ‘They have become so Anglicized that you can scarcely detect a hint of their native tones. They live in their big houses in Edinburgh and in London and ape the people who conquered them.'

‘Ah now,' said Mary. ‘Did we not agree before that it is all too long ago? One hundred years, two hundred years, it is all so far past. Why, nearly half the prime ministers of England this century have been Scottish!'

‘You miss my meaning, Mary. They should have been prime ministers of Scotland!'

‘Did Margaret no' bring anything in to
drink
? David, I'm sure, would like a dram.'

‘We should be going,' I said. ‘By the way, that other motto in the hall; whose is that?'

‘What motto?'

‘On the wall away from the window. There's another coat of arms and another inscription which someone has translated underneath. ‘‘The beast itself both bright and bold.'' That ours too?'

Lucie coughed and stared out of the window. Lady Abden said: ‘It is the insignia of the Fiernes of Loch Fierne. At the end of the eighteenth century the families were joined. Duncan Abden married the only surviving Fierne daughter, who brought this property with her; though for some time after that, until this new house was built, they continued to live at Wester Craig.'

‘Not quite the motto for a Christmas cracker,' I said.

‘What? Oh, such things were chosen long ago and times change.'

‘They were a mad lot,' said Mary with relish. ‘Made their own laws, more or less. Wish we could.'

‘As always, you exaggerate, Mary,' said Sister from the Window.

‘Well, the Highlands have always been a wee bit wild. A lot of folk still have the mind that civilization ends at the Grampians.'

It looked as if Shona had made a hit with my aunt, and I had a hunch that when they were a few minutes alone Shona had promised to send up some sample night creams to combat ‘a dry skin', a not unknown ploy of hers. There was even a lack of hostility – can't claim more than that – in Aunt Helen's cold eyes as I took her hand. It was so shrunk and thin the rings almost rattled. If Shona had offered her something for a dry skin she was damned right.

Mary, whom I began to think would quite likely become my favourite Abden, followed us out and weaved a way down the stairs to the front door.

‘A mad lot,' she said, ‘the Fiernes. Definitely weak in the crumpet, if you follow me. Their motto fits 'em fine.' She glanced behind to see if Lucie was following. ‘Stop and have a dram wi' me. Take the flavour of the coffee away.'

I glanced at Shona, who smiled and shook her head.

‘Tell me more, Cousin,' I said.

‘Ha, well the Fiernes were here before us, and that's saying something. Time of Robert the Bruce they looked on themselves as little kings. Didn't change much through the years neither. When they stopped murdering their neighbours they would sail off to Ireland and do the same there. A standing feud with the Abdens, of course, whom they looked on as upstarts. And they were neighbours, more or less. Neighbours always quarrel, don't they?' She pushed back her hair, which immediately fell forward again. ‘Then one day it all blew up into a bitter fight – when Fierne of Loch Fierne and both his sons were killed. That did not stop Duncan Abden – who was desperate short of siller at the time – from paying court to the one remaining daughter, Cathy Fierne, who was queer as a bat, and marrying her. She gave him three children and then was locked away under a keeper.'

I opened the front door. A thick fine mist had come up unnoticed, blotting out the sun and dulling the day.

‘It's the haars,' said Mary, twisting a button on her shabby jumper. ‘Got to expect it; time of the year. D'ye know, I never go out. Why should I? Far better indoors with a dram.'

‘Maybe you're right,' I said.

Mary put her knuckles to her mouth. ‘Pardon again. One feels empty at
this
time of day. Do you know …' She stopped.

‘Know what?'

‘The three bairns Cathy Fierne bore. One was normal, one took to chink, one went to the madhouse.' She chuckled. ‘They say it has been in the Abden family ever since. Getting born into our family you have a one in three chance … I know which straw I drew.'

I

As we were about to drive away a yellow Mini zoomed up. I had to do the introductions. They summed each other up in pretty smart time, and I didn't suppose an offer of samples of night cream would create sudden spiritual affinity. Alison was at her stillest and coolest and most composed, and Shona in her fur hat and short sable coat looked like the Tsarina out slumming. When we finally pushed off, screenwipers working overtime, she made no reference to Alison, or even to the others; we talked of the kitchen alterations and what chance Bruce Macintyre had of making a few summer lets to meet some of the cost.

‘One trouble with conmen,' I said, ‘ is that they sometimes con themselves. I can't do that here. Unless I sell it there's no way of seeing the house as an economic proposition.'

‘I can give you more money.'

‘I know. I'm worth it. But I don't want an increase just to tip it away on something I don't value.'

‘Don't you? I think you should.'

‘Didn't know you were such a romantic.'

‘I think you should go into it more carefully with Captain Macintyre and Mr Macardle – and even with Coppell and McVitie – to see if something cannot be worked out. For you may not be
able
to sell it.'

‘That thought,' I said, ‘had certainly occurred to me.'

‘Tomorrow morning we will inspect your property thoroughly, see if there is any profitable prospect.'

‘But we're leaving for London first thing. It's no short hop, as you observed coming up. Near on six hundred miles.'

‘Tomorrow morning,' Shona said, ‘we will inspect your property.'

The sea mist stayed thick all afternoon, partly clearing now and then and pulling the bedclothes back from the sickly sun, but then rolling down again from the moorland ridges that surrounded the house. Next morning it had all gone, but Shona, keeping to her resolutions, said we could leave late and spend the night in Edinburgh: she wanted to call on two shops, and if we were back in London by Friday it would do.

So we went off, part of the way accompanied by Coppell, who knew exactly where my land began and ended. She strode along beside us with the vigour of a youngster.