A Kind of Grief (35 page)

Although it was early evening, Calum was in bed in quiet despair. With Elaine gone, he could no longer look forward to their walks, their talks. If her shift was daytime, they would meet in the evenings and huddle up, cuddle up, on a sand dune or in the shelter of the rocks or in his father's car. If her shift was nighttime, in all weathers, they would spend afternoons at the beach or in the hills or drive up to Lairg, taking a picnic of digestive biscuits and cheese and pickle and lemonade. Or a flask of tea.

Once, Elaine brought a tea made from Miss Ramsay's herbs. He spat it out. “It's chamomile,” she told him.

“Boiled garden weeds,” he said.

Elaine laughed. Teased him for having no adventure in him. He gazed around at the loch, at the hills, at the high country up above Golspie, at the pass leading to the wildness of moorland around Garve, saying, “This is a grand adventure.” And she'd agreed.

“Calum.” The voice carried along the corridor, through two shut doors, past a small flight of stairs to a half landing, and through another sturdy door to his room, where Radio Luxembourg was transmitting faint sounds of music and voices through a thick haar of static. “Caa-lum.”

When he could no longer ignore the macaw-like squawk, he climbed out of bed, put on his slippers, and pulled a jumper over his pajamas. In my pajamas at nine o'clock at night, he thought. Elaine would say I'm an old man before ma time. He yawned and went to his mother. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing's wrong. I just wanted company.”

“I'm reading. And listening to the wireless.”

“You can bring your book in here,” she answered from her throne in the high bed, with a mountain of pillows and cushions and rugs and a shawl. “Bring the wireless an' all. I feel like some music.”

“Mum, I'm writing a—” Telling her he was writing to Elaine was not a good idea. “I'm trying to compose some articles for the
Highland Gazette
.”

“Surely you're not going back there? Not now you've been offered your old job back.”

“I want to work on the
Gazette
. It's interesting, and I'll learn a lot.” He knew he had to leave. The feeling of wanting to escape from her had come more and more frequently in recent weeks. And he hated himself for it. She was his mother. She was lonely. Not being in the shop, not serving the petrol, she had no one to talk to. Except him.

“That Elaine,” Mrs. Mackenzie began, “she's determined to take you away from me.”

“Mum.” Calum stood.

She heard the warning and stretched out for his hand, his sleeve, anything to hold on to her boy.

He was out of reach. “Can I make you a drink?” he asked.

“No, thanks. I don't want to disturb you in the night.” She would anyway, he knew.

“I'm leaving on Sunday so I can be back at the
Gazette
Monday morning. I've talked to the doctor, and the district nurse will come daily until you're up and about.” He knew when she said nothing that she didn't believe he would leave her. “I want to be with Elaine, so even if I don't have a job on a newspaper, with my qualifications, I can always find work down there.” He was proud of his daring.

“It's clear I'm not wanted.” With a tremble in her voice, reaching into her sleeve for a hankie, she overplayed the pity-poor-me.

“It's only for a year. When me and Elaine are married, we'll settle back here.” He knew not to mention they were saving for a house of their own or that his dad and Mrs. Galloway had promised to help them financially.

Elaine had agreed when they discussed it. “Of course we'll move back. But we're young, so let's have some fun first, then find a nice wee place and start a family.” She had one in mind, a small terraced house across the cobbled lane from her mother. “We'll have our wedding in the cathedral, you can go back to your old job, and I'll go back to nursing—after our babies are at school, of course.”

He'd blushed. She'd kissed him.

His anxiety lessened. He loved his mother. But knew they could not live with her.

Next morning, after the drawn-out performance of taking his mother breakfast in bed, helping her downstairs, fetching the newspaper, tuning the wireless to the Home Service, lighting the fire, and promising to be back in time to make dinner—“twelve o'clock sharp, else ma stomach plays up”—Calum walked to the hotel where his dad had left the car for him, keys in the ignition.

About to set off for the glen, he changed his mind.

“Hello, Mrs. Galloway, how are you?”

“Grand, Calum. Yourself?” She didn't need to ask. She could see the shadows under his eyes. See the sag of his shoulders.

“Not too bad. I just dropped in to tell you I'm taking Dad's car. Miss Ramsay's house was broken into. Now the rain's stopped, I want to have a proper poke around. See if . . .” See if what, he didn't know.

“Can I come too?” she asked. “It's been a while since I was up there. The auction was the last time.”

He didn't know why he'd hoped she would come with him but was grateful she'd offered. He liked Mrs. Galloway and was happy his dad was happy. Besides, he'd known little else. When he was growing up, his father would finish work, join them for supper, and be there for breakfast. It was only when he was nine, or was it ten, that he discovered from the school bully that his father spent his nights with Mrs. Galloway.

When they climbed out of the car, they buttoned their coats tight and pulled their hats down over their ears. The wind was brisk, the temperature in the low forties, but the sun was bright and the sky a deep blue that gladdened the heart.

“Listen.” Mrs. Galloway stood still, her head to one side.

“What?” He could hear nothing except a rustle of bog cotton, a whisper of wind in distant pines, the faint sound of a Forestry vehicle climbing the track across the glen.

“A skylark. Alice's favorite. That's why she took the house, she said. The skylark enchanted her into falling in love with the glen all over again.”

The five-bar gate had a new shiny lock. They climbed over and tramped up the track. From a distance, the house looked the same as Miss Ramsay had left it. Close up, it looked like it was suffering from a terminal injury: empty eye sockets for windows; the once bright blue door had fresh wounds slashed across the middle; the door handle had been gouged out; someone had nailed two planks of what looked like old floorboards across the doorframe to keep intruders out.

The back door was intact and locked. “I wonder if the key's in the same place.” Mrs. Galloway checked under a stone near the outside stone sink cum drinking trough Alice had used to pound willow bark to make a sleep remedy. “Here it is.”

“If someone knew Miss Ramsay, would they know where the key was kept?”

Mrs. Galloway thought about it. “A local would know that we seldom lock up hereabouts. An' if we do, we always leave a spare key handy.”

Calum nodded in agreement. He pushed open the back door that led into the scullery. This area was intact. The coat stand, the floor-to-ceiling shelves full of tins and jam jars and shoe polish and balls of twine and a bag full of of bags, all the handy things you might need in the garden—it was typical of a farmhouse or cottage.

Mrs. Galloway opened the door to the kitchen. He joined her. It took a moment or so before either could speak, as sadness silenced them.

“We had some nice chats in this place,” Mrs. Galloway began. “To see it like this . . .” Her eyes filled with tears, and Calum, seeing how shook up she was, patted her arm. The gesture was so like his father, a gesture of helplessness when confronted with a crying woman, the tears started to leak even more, but silently, running in rivulets down her cheeks, dripping down from the sides of her chin. She wiped her face with the sleeves of her coat. Taking a deep breath, she blew out noisily. “The court case, the gossip, Alice didn't deserve all thon nonsense.”

That much of the nonsense had been broadcast to every passing motorist, every townsperson, every countryman and woman, had been discussed, dissected, and exaggerated by his mother, Calum knew. He was grateful he had never once heard Mrs. Galloway criticize his mother.

Dad's friend
was what he called her. Elaine had giggled, saying, “Come on, Calum, she's more than just a friend.”

Calum asked, “Do you think she did it?” He'd wanted to ask since they'd set out on the eight miles to Alice Ramsay's lair up the glen.

No explanation was needed. “I believed it at the time,” Mrs. Galloway answered. “Alice was sensitive, artistic, she saw things differently from ordinary folk. Maybe the gossip and rumors was too much for her. Calum, I just plain don't know.” She gestured around. “All this has got me to wondering.”

“It's only eejits out for mischief.”

“This far from the road? In this weather?” She was looking at the floorboards. They had been prized up at the nail joins, neatly, regularly. She thought this significant but couldn't grasp why. “It'll be a big job to put this lot back.” She kicked a loose plank.

“Do you think someone will ever live here again?”

“You and Elaine could. It would be hard for your mum, though. She'd need a piggy-back up the track.”

Calum grinned at the joke. Then, seeing his sort-of-stepmum's face, the twin lines between her eyebrows deepening at the thought of his mother, he said, “Likely to be snowed in in the winter, up here.” He wanted to reassure her the suggestion was not taken badly. “But a lovely place in summer.”

“Aye.” She nodded, then smiled. “Up here, for three months it's spring, summer, an' autumn, and nine months it's winter.”

They left none the wiser as to why someone would vandalize the house. Both had theories. Calum thought it was done for the hell of it. Mrs. Galloway thought someone was looking for something and, failing to find it, made their search look like the work of hooligans.

Calum dropped Mrs. Galloway off at the hotel, thanking her for coming with him.

“Calum, do something to please me. Call me Muriel.”

He promised he would, although it would always be Mrs. Galloway when his mother was around.

“Your dad and me, we've been talking.”

“Oh, aye?” He didn't want to hear.

Muriel Galloway sensed his reluctance to become involved. “When Elaine visits, let's the four of us have a meal out somewhere away from the town. Maybe Mr. Mackenzie and me could drive south to visit you.”

“Thanks. Elaine and me, we'd like that.”

“Us too.” She smiled at him. “You're a good person, Calum. I'm only sorry you've had to put up with . . .” She gestured to everything and nothing. “With all this,” she said quickly, before the words
your mother
escaped.

The editor offered Calum the use of the office and a typewriter at the Sutherland newspaper. Calum thanked him, said he would write up an article on the vandalism of the house, then told him he would be returning to the
Gazette.

“I like it, and I'm learning a lot from Mr. McAllister. He used to be a big-time journalist, you know.”

When Elaine called that evening, he said the same.

“I know,” she replied. “So make certain you're there on Monday morning; they won't wait forever. And I won't either.”

That depressed Calum. And worried him. Never before had Elaine indicated she might not wait for him.

“Who was that?” his mother asked when he returned to the sitting room.

“Elaine.”

“Oh. I thought it was something important the way you took so long.”

Calum was oblivious to his mother's wee tricks of language and said nothing.

Next day, back in the comfortable and unchallenging atmosphere of his former office, he was typing his notes when the receptionist came in with a note.

“Don't tell me, it's my mother.”

“No, your dad.”