Under Gemini (32 page)

He sat back, turning his profile to her, and stared dejectedly ahead, his hands on the driving wheel. He said at last, “Yes,” and Flora felt sorry for him.

“It's awful, I know. In a way, I wish we could go back and you could tell her now and get it over, but with the party and everything…”

“I'll tell her tomorrow.” That was final. He did not want to talk about it any more. “And now for God's sake, let's get home. I'm hungry and I want tea.”

“Mrs. Watty's made scones.”

“And let's put tomorrow out of our minds. Don't let's talk about it any more.”

With that ostrich-like remark, he reached for the ignition key, but Flora stopped him.

“There is just one more thing.” She put her hand into her pocket. “This.”

“What's this?”

“It's a postcard.”

“Pretty crummy-looking postcard.”

“I know. I threw it in the wastepaper basket, and then I thought perhaps you'd better see it, so I took it out again. That's why it's all bent.”

He took it from her cautiously. “Paris?” He turned it over, instantly recognized the writing, and read it through in silence. When he had finished there was a long silence. Then he said, “What a bitch.”

“That's why I dropped it into the wastepaper basket.”

He read it again, and his sense of humor got the better of him. “You know, in a way, Rose is quite a bright girl. She set this whole thing up, and you and I fell for it, like a couple of suckers. Or I did. The joke is definitely on me. And if one can remain detached, I suppose it's quite a good one. ‘Decided to stop off for a couple of days.' Do you suppose she ever got to Spetsai?”

“Perhaps she met another man on the plane. Perhaps she's in Gstaad or Monaco or…” Flora cast about for the most unlikely place she could think of and came up with, “Acapulco?”

“I wouldn't know.” He gave Flora back the postcard. “Throw it in the fire when we get back to Fernrigg.” He started up the car. “And that will be the end of Rose. Wherever she is, she's gone.”

Flora did not reply. She knew that Rose hadn't gone. And she wouldn't go until Antony told Tuppy the truth.

10

HUGH

The band arrived just as Antony was on his way upstairs to change. They came in a small battered car belonging to and driven by Mr. Cooper, the postmistress's husband, and players and instruments were packed in so tightly that it took some time and thought to get them finally extricated.

That achieved, Antony led them into the house and showed them to their assigned space in a corner of the hall. There they established themselves—Mr. Cooper with his accordion; the fiddler (a retired roadman, some relation of Mrs. Cooper); and the drummer, a long-haired lad in high boots whom Antony recognized as a Tarbole boy, deckhand on his uncle's fishing boat. The three had decked themselves out in a sort of spurious uniform—blue shirts and tartan bow-ties—thus presenting a brave show.

Antony gave them all a nip of whisky, and at once they got down to business and started to warm up—the old man tuning his fiddle and Mr. Cooper playing long, trilling arpeggios on the keyboard of the accordion.

Time was running short. Antony left them and ran upstairs to search out his evening clothes, which he was much relieved to find ready and waiting, laid out on his bed: shoes, stockings, garters, skean dhu; shirt, tie, waistcoat and doublet, kilt and sporran. The shoe buckles, silver buttons and skean dhu had all been polished, and his gold studs and cuff links arranged on the top of his chest of drawers. Somebody, probably Mrs. Watty, had been busy, and he blessed her heart, because as usual he had left everything to the last minute, and had resigned himself to a frantic search for the mislaid pieces of equipment.

Ten minutes later, the very picture of a well-dressed Highland gentleman, he was downstairs again. By now the caterers had arrived. Mr. Anderson, in a starched white jacket, was setting out smoked salmon on the buffet table, assisted by Mrs. Watty. Mrs. Anderson, a stately lady with a formidable reputation for good behavior, had taken up her position behind the bar and was engaged in giving the glasses a final polish, holding each one up to the light to check for possible smudges.

There did not seem to be anything more for Antony to do. He glanced at his watch, and decided there was time to pour himself a whisky and soda and take it upstairs to say goodnight to Tuppy. This he was just on the point of doing, when he was diverted by the sound of a car coming up the drive and grinding to a halt on the gravel outside the house.

“Who on earth can that be?”

“Whoever it is,” said Mrs. Anderson, sedately plying her teacloth, “they're fifteen minutes early.”

Antony frowned. This was the west of Scotland, and nobody was ever fifteen minutes early. More likely an hour and three quarters late. He waited apprehensively, with visions of himself spending the next half hour trying to make polite conversation into Mrs. Clanwilliam's hearing aid. A car door slammed, footsteps crunched on the gravel, and the next moment the front door opened and Hugh Kyle appeared. He wore a dinner suit and looked, thought Antony, immensely distinguished.

“Hello, Antony.”

Antony let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God it's only you. You're early.”

“Yes, I know.” Hugh shut the door behind him and came forward, his hands in his pockets, his eyes taking in the festive scene. “This is very splendid. Just like old times.”

“I know. Everybody's been working like a beaver. You're just in time for a dram. I was going to pour myself one and then go up to see Tuppy, but as you're here…” He poured two whiskies, topped them up with water, handed one to Hugh. “Slaintheva, old friend.”

He raised his glass. But Hugh did not appear to be in a health-drinking mood. He stood there holding the drink and watching Antony, and his blue eyes were somber. For some reason Antony was instantly apprehensive. He lowered his glass, without having tasted the whisky. He asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” Hugh told him bluntly. “And I think we'd better talk about it. Is there somewhere we could go, where we wouldn't be disturbed?”

*   *   *

Flora sat at the dressing table, wrapped in the shabby blue bathrobe she had had since she was at school, and applied mascara to her long, bristly lashes. Her reflection, the woman in the mirror who leaned toward her, seemed to have nothing to do with Flora Waring. The elaborate makeup, the carefully arranged fall of shining hair, were as formal and unfamiliar as a photograph in a magazine. Even the bedroom behind her was alien. She saw the glow of the electric fire, the drawn curtains, the ghost-like form of her dress hanging on the outside of the wardrobe door where Nurse McLeod, with some pride, had ceremoniously arranged it.

Her pride was justifiable, for it now bore no resemblance to the dim garment which Mrs. Watty had produced from the trunk in the attic. Bleached, starched, stitched, it waited for Flora, crisp and cold as newly-fallen snow. The blue lining showed in bands between insets of lawn and lace, and a line of tiny pearl buttons ran from waist to throat.

Its presence was disturbing. Silent and reproachful, it seemed to be watching Flora and, like a disapproving onlooker, was quite unsettling. She knew that she did not want to put it on. All this time she had been putting off the moment when she had to come to terms with it, but now there seemed no further excuse to delay. She laid down the mascara brush and sprayed herself recklessly with the last of Marcia's scent. She stood up and reluctantly slipped out of the familiar comfort of the old blue dressing gown. For an instant her reflection stood before her: tall, slender, her body still brown from the summer's sun, the tan emphasized by the white lace bikini of bra and briefs. The room was warm, but she shivered. She turned from the mirror and went to take the dress from the hanger, step carefully into it, ease her arms into the long tight sleeves, and finally edge it up over her shoulders. It felt resistant and cold, like a dress made of paper.

She did up the tiny buttons. That took some time because the buttonholes were glued shut with starch and had to be worked open and each button coaxed into place. The high collar was agony—hard as cardboard, it cut into her neck below her jawline.

But finally, everything was done, the little belt buckled, the cuff buttons fastened. She moved cautiously to inspect herself and saw a girl stiff as a sugar bride on the top of a wedding cake.
I'm afraid,
she told herself, but the girl in the mirror offered no comfort. She simply stared back at Flora dispassionately, as though she didn't particularly like her. Flora sighed, stooped cautiously to turn off the electric fire, switched off the lights, and left her room. She went down the passage to show herself off and say goodnight to Tuppy as she had promised to do.

She heard the faint beat of jigging music. The house felt very warm (Watty had been bidden to turn up the heat) and smelt of log fires and chrysanthemums. Cheerful voices floated up from the kitchen, creating an atmosphere of suppressed excitement—like the day before Christmas, or the moment of opening some mysterious tinsel-wrapped parcel.

Tuppy's door stood ajar. From within came the companionable murmur of voices. Flora tapped at the door and went in, and saw Tuppy plumped up against fresh pillows and wearing a white bedjacket tied with satin bows; and beside her, looking like a child out of an old portrait, her great-grandson, Jason.

“Rose!” Tuppy flung out her arms, a typical Tuppy gesture, gay, loving, rather dashing. “My dear child. Come and let us look at you. No, walk up and down so that we can really see.” Rigid with starch, Flora obliged. “What a clever creature Nurse is! To think that dress has been in the attic all these years, and now it looks as though it's just been created. Come and give me a kiss. How good you smell. Now sit, just here, on the edge of the bed. Carefully, though, you mustn't crush the skirt.”

Flora arranged herself cautiously. She said, “With this collar, I feel like a giraffe-necked woman.”

“What's a giraffe-necked woman?” asked Jason.

“They come from Burma,” Tuppy told him, “and they put gold rings on their necks and their necks go on forever.”

“Was it really your tennis dress, Tuppy?” He gazed at Flora, scarcely recognizing her for the everyday person he had come to know, familiar in her jeans and sweaters. He felt rather shy of this new person.

“Yes, it really was. When I was a girl.”

“How you played tennis in this, I can't imagine,” Flora said.

Tuppy considered this problem. “Well, it wasn't very good tennis.” They all laughed. She took Flora's hand and gave it one of her proprietary little pats. Her eyes were very bright, her color high, but whether it was due to excitement or to the brimming glass of champagne which stood on her bedside table, it was impossible to say. “I've been sitting here listening to the music, and my feet have been dancing away under the sheets, having a little party all to themselves. And then Jason came to see me, looking the image of his grandfather, and I've been telling him all about the party we had when his grandfather was twenty-one, when we lit the bonfire up on the hill behind the house, and all the country people came, and there was an ox roasting on a spit and barrels of beer. What a party that one was!”

“Tell Rose about my grandfather and his boat.”

“Rose won't want to hear about that.”

“Yes, I will. Tell me,” Flora urged.

Tuppy did not need any more encouragement. “Well, Jason's grandfather was called Bruce, and what a wild boy he was! He spent all his days with the farm children, and at the end of the holidays I could scarcely cram his feet into shoes. But he was the child who always had a passion for the sea. He was never afraid of it, and he could swim really quite strongly by the time he was five. And when he was only a little older than Jason, he got his first dinghy. Tammy Todd—he works at Ardmore—well, it was his old father who built it for Bruce. And every year, in the summer, the Ardmore Yacht Club used to have a regatta, and there was a race for the children and … what was it called, Jason?”

“It was called the Tinker's Race, because all the sails were patched!”

Flora frowned. “Patched?”

“He means that all the sails were home-made,” Tuppy explained, “all in marvelous colors, sewn together like patchwork. All the mothers worked for months, and the child with the gayest sails won the prize. And Bruce won it that first year, and I don't think any prize ever meant so much to him as that one did.”

“But he won more races, didn't he, Tuppy?”

“Oh, yes. Lots and lots of races. And not just at Ardmore. He used to go down to the Clyde and sail with the Royal Northern, and then when he left school, he crewed for an ocean race, and went over to America. He always had a boat. It was the greatest pleasure in his life.”

“And then the war came, and he joined the navy,” Jason prompted, not wanting the story to end.

“Yes, he went to sea. And he was in a destroyer with the Atlantic convoys, and sometimes they'd come into the Gairloch or the Kyles of Lochalsh, and he'd get home for a weekend's leave, and as likely as not spend the whole time either working on his boat, or sailing one of the dinghys.”

“And my grandmother was in the navy, too, wasn't she?”

Tuppy smiled indulgently at Jason's enthusiasm. “Yes, she was in the Wrens. They were married very soon after the beginning of the war. And what a funny wedding it was. It kept being put off because Bruce was always at sea, but finally they got married in London on a weekend leave, and Isobel and I had such a time getting there—all the trains full of soldiers and everybody sharing sandwiches and sitting on each other's knees. We did have fun.”

“Tell us more stories,” said Jason. But Tuppy threw up her hands.