A Kind of Grief (31 page)

We were friends—of sorts—but I was the outsider. They had known each other since babies. It was a time of first boyfriends and girlfriends, of holding hands and chaste kissing. There was some scandal involving Mrs. Mackenzie's father; I don't remember the details, if I ever knew. Shot himself was the story I heard.

That was the last summer I spent at the big house—before war and debts and death duties lost us the family estate that had been ours for generations. With Daddy off somewhere on that horrendous campaign in Italy, and Mummy dying so soon after, the estate had to be sold. The new owner is an insurance company and runs it as an investment, and for the grouse shooting.

But as it belonged to Grandmamma, this house and the five acres of land became mine.

Joanne remembered her promise to McAllister. However, asking Elaine to check out some simple details for the manuscript—the locations of the illustrations, the sources of old books—that had nothing to do with her promise to stop probing into Alice's death.

“How are you?” Joanne asked when Elaine called.

“Truly, righteously fed up,” Elaine answered. “You know, of course, that Calum is back home and in danger of losing a great job he's only been at for two weeks.”

Joanne considered fibbing. Then didn't. “Yes, I know. If he returns soon, it should be fine.” She didn't mention Lorna.

“Well, I'm coming down to start
my
new job no matter what. So if Calum chooses to stay at home . . .”

Usually, Joanne considered ultimatums dangerous. In the case of Calum Mackenzie, she conceded this might be the only strategy that would work; prizing him away from his mother would require all the wiles of a mother fox.

“I know the timing is bad. But the chance of a great job for her son, you'd think his mum would be thrilled.”

Joanne could hear the despair in Elaine's voice.

“In his last job,” the nurse continued, “she couldn't see how her turning up to a council meeting he was reporting on was embarrassing. ‘The council chambers is a public place,' she'd say. She always had some excuse to ‘pop in' when Calum was doing an interview in the tearoom or the golf club. ‘Just happened to be passing by,' she'd say. Calum was right humiliated.” Elaine sighed a long deep outbreath. “I've no right to criticize. It's just that she has her life, and we need ours, or we'll never— Sorry Joanne, I'm right frustrated.”

This was the first time Joanne had heard Elaine voice doubts about her future with Calum. “I can't advise you. I'm hopeless at relationships.” She was not able to talk about her parents to anyone other than her husband. As for her first marriage, apart from it being a disgrace to be a divorced woman, she believed discussing her former husband was disloyal to her children, and this stopped her from saying anything further.

“Anyhow, the old books you wanted to know about. I found out that Miss Ramsay bought the former library of a military family who'd lived in a grand house near Brora for centuries.”

“Most were falling apart,” the auctioneer had told Elaine. “Right dirty and dusty they were, and some in a foreign language.”

“Thanks, that helps me,” said Joanne, thinking,
though I've no idea how.

“I don't suppose you'd come up here for my leaving party.”

The way Elaine said this, so much quieter than her usual bubbling-burn-in-full-spate voice, made Joanne reply, “I'd love to come.”

After a squeal of joy that made Joanne almost drop the receiver, Elaine told her the arrangements for the party. “It's in Mrs. Galloway's hotel, in the afternoon so the fittest of the old people can come. Only shame is Mrs. Galloway's mother won't make it. She's gone downhill since Miss Ramsay . . .”

Another unfinished sentence; Joanne wondered when they would be able to say “died” without shuddering at the manner of Alice's death.
Probably never,
she thought.

“As it's Saturday, why don't you bring the girls?” Elaine suggested. “The old dears love having children around.”

Joanne didn't voice her reservations: a long journey for a short visit; the drive home would be in the dark; memories of Alice Ramsay; meeting Mrs. Mackenzie again. “Can't promise, but I'll ask them.”

“Thank you thank you thank you,” Elaine gushed, reminding Joanne how frustrating the young woman's situation was. It was best they leave for a while, best for their careers, best for them as a couple.

Joanne went back to pondering the final work needed on the manuscript. An index? The foreword? For the cover, she'd decided on a painting of the glen above Alice's home, where a splash of late heather glowed in an otherwise bronze-brown landscape.

When McAllister came home, she explained about Elaine's party.

“I'll come too,” he said.

“But you'll hate it.”

In his bachelor days, he would never have attended, but Joanne was teaching him that being part of a community meant more than just writing about it.

Instead of sharing his doubts that Calum would ever leave Sutherland, he told her Don was taking Lorna on as a trainee reporter. “On a trial basis for three months,” he said. “She'll either be brilliant or terrify everyone into silence—her social skills can be abrasive.”

“She'll be brilliant. As for being abrasive, some of those town and county councilors need a cheeky young woman to shock them.”

“Her makeup's a bit confrontational.”

Joanne burst out laughing. “I can't believe you said that. You sound like someone's granddad, not my sophisticated man-about-town.”

“In that case, I'll need to live it up at this party in the wilds of Sutherland.”

That the activities of the Man from the Ministry were obsessing him, he didn't share. Nor did he share his conviction that the man was telling as little of the truth as possible. He knew he'd have to tell Joanne the stranger wanted the manuscript.

But not yet
, he told himself,
not before I've checked the legal situation.
That thought led to another.
Not that legalities stopped Stuart spying on my wife, perhaps on me, and on Miss Ramsay.
As for holding the Fatal Accident Inquiry in secret, the disposal of the body equally secretive, Stuart seemed able to make his own laws, even in Scotland.

Elaine told no one, but her doubts about relocating had vanished; the more Mrs. Mackenzie clung to her son, the more determined she became to leave.

“The two of us, living away from home, with great jobs, it'll be wonderful.” Finding time alone with Calum was a hundred times harder since the accident. “We can save money, then when we come back”—she was still certain they would return one day—“we will have enough money for our own place and not have to live with our families.”
Your mother
, she meant.

Calum was wise enough to know his fiancée could never share a house with his mum. How to tell his mum was the problem.

Elaine thought of her own mother, a straightforward, caring woman with lovely eyes, who bore a strong resemblance to her daughter. She thought of the people she would miss—friends from school, colleagues from work, Nurse Ogilvie, Dr. Jamieson, and the more mobile of their charges.

Even knowing what a disaster Calum's parents' marriage was, she'd put aside her doubts about marrying into the Mackenzie family.

“Calum takes after his dad,” she'd told her mother. “He's kind, really patient, and always sees the good in others. He's interesting to talk to as well.” She meant interested in more than cars and Friday-night drinking until you fell over, which was all the other young men in town seemed to care about. Elaine loved her “Wee Man,” as she called him in private.

Calum heard it as “Her Wee Man” and loved the possessiveness in the words. He never minded being small. “I can play golf with the best o' them. And I have you,” he told her, “so why should I mind?”

When McAllister and Joanne arrived at the hotel, they knew where to go from the balloons and the murmur of conversations competing with music from a gramophone.

Joanne was familiar with the dining room from her previous stay at the hotel. She led her family through the double swing doors and into Elaine's farewell party.

What struck her, after the pleasant surprise at seeing so many gathered to honor Elaine, was Alice Ramsay's painting. It now had pride of place on the center wall above the fireplace. And lit by a proper art gallery light, the heather, the willows, the birch, and the water in the lochan in the foreground glowed.

McAllister made straight for the ham sandwiches and a beer. Joanne went to join the circle of what she took to be fellow nurses around Elaine. Jean clung to her mother's side but was tempted towards the cake table by Elaine's mother.

Annie made a beeline for Calum. “Hiya!”

Calum now knew, and didn't mind, that Annie would ask the questions everyone wanted an answer to but daren't voice.

“Is your mother too sick to come to the party?”

“Her left leg is in plaster, and her broken ribs hurt. She's getting better but can't get around much.”

“Good,” Annie said. “I mean, it's good she's getting better.” The girl crammed her mouth with the last of the sausage rolls before she made another blunder.

Joanne came over to say hello to Calum. “Elaine introduced me to your father. Such a nice man.” She then worried that the remark might be interpreted as
in contrast to your mother
and escaped to talk to the doctor, who was on his own, balancing a cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches and looking miserable.

“Hello, Doctor. Joanne Ross. We met at the auction.”

“Hello, Mrs. Ross . . .” He looked towards McAllister as though searching for an answer. Or a clue.

“Sorry, I'm also Mrs. McAllister. Ross is my professional name. Not that this is a professional occasion. I just wanted to say hello.”

“A modern woman,” he said. “I like that.”

“Alice Ramsay was too.”

“She was a wonderful woman. I miss her.” His sorrow was clear and, Joanne decided, genuine.

“Elaine told me you are also leaving. Africa, isn't it?”

“Yes, Rhodesia. Doctors are needed there.”

He saw Joanne look up through the strands escaping from a Kirby-grip that was failing to hold back her thick chestnut hair. In her eyes he read a question.

“Here they can always find another doctor. Other nurses, even, if it comes to that. But there will never be another Alice Ramsay. She brought joy and color into the lives of those she met.”

“The old saying, we'll ne'er see her likes again, is how I feel about her.”

“Absolutely.” The doctor continued, “When I heard Alice referred to as ‘thon witch,' I took it as a joke. Yes, she made up teas from herbs. Yes, she made up ointments. Aspirin comes from willow bark, after all, and for the older generations, their medications were homemade remedies.”