The Man from the Sea (11 page)

It was the memory of Sally’s pallor, perhaps, that made Cranston find the appearance of the girl hiker so startling. The girl’s face was red and shining, and high on her rucksack there was sewn some species of red flag. The effect, from a little distance, was alarmingly Janus-like; approached from front or rear, she would equally present an appearance as of the blazing sun. The sun indeed was suggested by everything about her. Her hair and her khaki shorts and shirt were alike bleached by it, and her limbs – which her garments did not much obscure – were burned brown beneath a glint of fine golden hairs. If one put one’s nose to her skin and took a good sniff – Cranston supposed – one would know at last just what the sun smells of.

But Cranston had no thought of this experiment. He had come up with her only a couple of hundred yards from his own garden gate, and he would have skimmed past her rapidly enough if she had not turned and given him a hail. She waved a map as she did so, and it was clear that she was seeking directions. Cranston jammed on his brakes and dismounted. It was something he was unable to do very graciously, for he was both in a great hurry and increasingly burdened by a sense of hopeless stupidities past and problematical actions to come. Nevertheless, as he asked whether he could help he summoned up some sort of smile. The girl had the legs of her shorts rolled up to the thigh, like the awful little trollops who scour the countryside on bicycles at week-ends. Moreover, her accent was of neither of the kinds that Cranston had been brought up to regard as socially acceptable. He had remarked this – and was attempting to square it with the fact that her shoes were sensible and her fingernails unpainted – when the girl spread out her map in a businesslike fashion over his handlebars. “Will you just show me,” she said, “about where I am?”

“The village straight ahead of you is Easter Dinwiddie.” Cranston put a finger on the map. “And you’re just here.”

“Thanks a lot.” The girl looked up at the sky and then frankly at Cranston, so that he had a sensation of seeing his own features reflected on her shining cheeks. “I suppose,” she said, “that it will be another regular cow?”

“I beg your pardon?” He was bewildered – and anxious to push on.

“The day – really hot.”

The girl had dropped the rucksack at her feet. He saw that the red flag had a Union Jack and the Southern Cross on it. “I’d have thought,” he said, “that you wouldn’t mind heat. You’re rather my idea of a salamander.”

For a moment she looked puzzled, and he was sorry to have said something unintelligible and therefore unmannerly. “I mean–”

“But of course. We’re thrice colder than salamanders in my part of the world. Fires of Spain and the line mean nothing to us. But we don’t expect to be grilled when we come to Scotland.”

“I suppose not.” Cranston felt with his left foot for the pedal of his bike. She had squashed him and he could get on. But if salamanders were not mysterious to her, and she could bandy Donne or whoever it was, why had she looked puzzled? Suddenly he realised that it was because she had noticed his pullover and recognised it as not designed for his sex. This annoyed him. “It’s certainly going to be hot,” he said, and slung himself over his bike. “But you’ve made an early start.”

“I was glad to. I spent the night in rather a hole. Bed and breakfast. But I didn’t stop for the second after sampling the first.”

“The bed was a regular cow?”

She looked at him quickly, and it was possible to conceive that she had flushed. Then she picked up the rucksack. “You can’t,” she asked briefly, “tell me where a Dr Cranston lives?”

“Just down there, on the left. You can see the drive.” And with obscure misgiving he added: “My name is Richard Cranston. I come from there.”

“Richard!” The young woman’s effulgence seemed to increase – as if, so far, she had after all been shining through a light morning mist. “I’m George,” she said, and held out her hand.

“How do you do.” He was just in time, he decided, by alertly exerting considerable muscular pressure of his own, to avoid having his fingers badly crushed. “We’ve been wondering when you would turn up.”

Again she gave him her quick look, and when she spoke it was with a shade of defensiveness or distrust. “I only wrote to your mother once – and quite vaguely.”

“Yes – but even the off-chance of a visitor is something we do a lot of talking about here.” Cranston, who did recall his mother recently murmuring about some itinerant Australian cousin, spoke with decent heartiness. He was sure that an antipodean sun-goddess called George was not at all his style, and the girl’s arrival at just this moment was going to complicate his getting briskly away from home. Still, he couldn’t do other than welcome her. “Come along,” he said. “We’re both in time for breakfast.”

“Beaut!” George slung her rucksack – which was enormous – lightly on her shoulder. Then, seeing him put out a hand for it, she resigned it without comment. “Do you often go for an early morning spin?”

“No.”

He had spoken abruptly, and for a few moments they walked in silence. It occurred to him with a sort of surprise that he still had a natural instinct for telling the truth. The last few weeks, indeed, had given him a sharp schooling in lies, but he was subject to constant dangerous relapse. Perhaps he should have assured George that he went out at crack of dawn quite frequently. He glanced at her cautiously. She seemed to be exactly his own six feet, but to possess an even longer stride. They were covering the ground briskly enough – but she had put her hands in the pockets of her shorts and had the appearance of gently strolling. “I don’t really know about your family,” she said. “But have you got a sister?”

“No, just one brother – and he’s in Germany.”

“I see. Do you often arrive home early in the morning in your own pants and somebody else’s jersey?”

“No – I don’t.” He was astounded at this casual frankness – the more so because it couldn’t be called, in its manner, either flippant or offensive. “I was doing some nocturnal bathing; and various things happened; and I borrowed this when it turned a bit chilly.” He increased his own pace. Sooner or later the lies would have to begin. He might be better at them after a solid breakfast. “Is it so very obviously,” he asked, “a woman’s jersey?”

“Haven’t you a nose?” George was amused.

“A nose? Oh – I see.” It was true that the scent of some expensive stuff clung to Sally’s pullover and that he had failed to be aware of it. “Here we are.” They had walked up the short drive and the uncompromising square house was before them. “Do you find Scottish architecture a bit grim?”

“It does rather hit you on the Border. But up here it either isn’t quite so bleak or you get used to it. Do I walk straight in?”

He nodded. The front door was open and they walked into the square tiled hall. “At least I can smell coffee,” he said. “It’s something slightly exotic, insisted upon by my father. But everything you see around you is authentic to the region: chocolate-coloured paint, ground glass in as many of the windows as possible, stags’ heads, steel engravings depicting striking incidents in sacred history. Do you like it?”

“I like it very much.”

George was emphatic, and he realised, without much caring, that she misinterpreted and disliked his tone. Moreover, she seemed suddenly slightly awkward. Perhaps she was afraid of melting something or of setting the whole place on fire. But conceivably the awkwardness was really his own. Leaving things at the castle as he had done, he felt that every minute had to be counted. But he could scarcely now simply scribble a note for his mother, grab a couple of rolls, get out the car and vanish. If only – He became aware that George was expecting something, and he took an inspired guess at it. Her mind would work in terms of a tradition of unquestioning hospitality. “Look,” he said, “nobody seems to be about yet. But you’ll want to go to your room. I’ll show you.”

She nodded and he led the way upstairs. Fortunately there always was a room in decent order. He would shove George into it. And then – it came to that – he would rapidly plan his escape.

His mother was in the kitchen, so he knew there would be scrambled eggs. On this simple dish Mrs Cranston held strict views, and she seldom allowed it to be prepared by other hands. He had laid a fourth place at the table before she entered the breakfast-room. He kissed her. “The Australian cousin has come,” he said. “I was out early and met her. She had slept goodness knows where. I put her in the spare bedroom. She’ll be down any minute.”

“Then you must have yours boiled.” Taking her son’s news very much in her stride, Mrs Cranston turned back to the kitchen. “Elspeth, boil two eggs for Master Richard. And make a little more toast and add one cupful of boiling water to the coffee.” She returned to her son. “I felt Georgiana might just turn up. I shall be so pleased to meet her.”

“She’s not Georgiana. She’s George.”

“How very amusing! And is she charming?”

“Charming?” It was one of his mother’s period tricks to take it for granted that one must develop a sort of moonstruck interest in any fresh girl on the horizon. “She’s quite terrible – enormous and roasted and toasted and without a pure vowel in the–”

“You should be ashamed of yourself. She’s your father’s cousin and she’s in my house.” Mrs Cranston could be briskly formidable.

“Yes, I know. And I’m sorry. I daresay she’s a nice child. Only she does make you want to grab a fire-extinguisher. She burns with a hard gem-like flame.”

“I very much wish that you had gone to St Andrews, Richard, where you would have enjoyed the society of gentlemen, and not to that dreadful–”

“Ssh! I think she’s coming down. And you mustn’t be shocked.”

“Shocked? If you don’t shock me nothing will. What’s wrong with her?”

“George is dressed like a boy scout. Or rather she protrudes from garments of that–”

“Be quiet.”

There was a step on the staircase and George came in. Mrs Cranston, before advancing, allowed herself a withering glance at her son. George was in a frock, miraculously uncreased. It was true that she remained more like Aurora than a mortal girl, and that the comparatively small areas of her person now exposed put to shame the toast which was presently carried into the room. But this was far from offending Cranston’s mother – and it plainly delighted his father when he appeared. Indeed, it was presently plain to Cranston that George was going to be a great success. Mrs Cranston gave her a rapid sketch of the families in the neighbourhood, with particular emphasis on the young men. Dr Cranston enquired her age, height and weight and was accurately answered. George herself, without a glance at Cranston, remarked that she liked the simple Scottish ways. At home, Mum would let none of the boys sit down at table without a collar and tie.

Through all this only his real anxiety and a sense of the ticking clock preserved Cranston from merely childish gloom. The fact that the girl was a pure menace – and that she probably by now much disliked him as well – by no means made it any easier to drop his uncivil bombshell into the proceedings. But presently he did so, nevertheless. He had made unexpected arrangements on the previous night, he declared, and he was motoring south immediately after breakfast.

But the announcement fell flat. The fact came to him in what he knew to be a thoroughly foolish mingling of relief and resentment. If his mother thought his conduct outrageously rude, she dissimulated it in the distraction of calling for a fresh jar of marmalade. And presently she was sketching out picnics and tennis-parties designed, it seemed, to spread over a long vista of coming weeks. Gavin McGilvray would make an excellent partner for Georgiana; he was even taller than Richard and his backhand had become far better controlled. Dr Cranston enquired about golf. It was clear that, as an entertainer, he saw no difficulty in stepping into his son’s place. He had his busy times – he had been out on an emergency and had had to call a county ambulance that very morning – but then he had his easy times too… Cranston was breathing freely, and had already bolted a second cup of coffee preparatory to rising and saying goodbye, when George abruptly succeeded in achieving what he had so notably failed at. She announced, amid general consternation, that as Richard was motoring south she would take the opportunity of travelling with him. This had been only a dash to Scotland, and she had heard of friends whom she must presently meet in London. But, if Mrs Cranston allowed her, she would come back for a proper visit. And on this she was so specific, and prepared so unhesitatingly to name dates, that dismay was transformed into approval within five minutes. Mrs Cranston saw great advantages in the proposal. Later in the summer, Richard would, of course, be at home to take her about, and numerous parties could be arranged well in advance.

Cranston listened in absolute dismay. The girl was outrageous. His sense of this – although in fact it rather lacked conviction – emboldened him to try something like blank refusal. “I’m frightfully sorry,” he said, “but, you see–”

“You’re not going alone? You haven’t room?”

“Of course I’m going alone.” He stopped. It was his first blank lie, and for a second he looked at her uncertainly. She was deplorable, without a doubt, but she didn’t remotely mean any offence or aggression. The proposal had come into her head as absolutely licensed and, so to speak, graced by their vague cousinly relation – or perhaps just by some antipodean canon of normal human feeling. Nor, he realised, were his parents remotely within hail of thinking any evil of a plan which would send him off into the blue with a virtually unknown young woman. Their period sentiments were always shot with a large innocence. It was a fact of which he had become remorsefully if conveniently aware during the last few sultry weeks. He turned to George. “I meant that I’m afraid you wouldn’t – you won’t – be very comfortable in my terrible old car.”

It was a remark which could only, in the circumstances, be received with mirth and jollity. George disappeared to get her rucksack and Mrs Cranston to cut sandwiches. Cranston was left to the company of his father and the contemplation of an entirely new predicament to which he had committed himself. The real mischief, he saw, was the element of danger. Here at his mother’s breakfast table it had become hard to believe in. But it was there, all the same. A couple of miles away Sally was still doing duty with a gun, John Day was sitting helpless in that summerhouse, and the man with the trilby hat lurked outside the castle – a figure of ruthless violence with incalculable forces already perhaps mustering behind him. All Cranston could now do was to set off with George and then in some way get rid of her. For instance, he could insult her. There were decidedly things for which he was sure that she wouldn’t stand. He could –