As soon as I woke, I knew from the dull, grey light seeping through the curtains that the sky was overcast. If it was raining, I thought, we would not be able to go for the picnic we had planned to celebrate Jenny's birthday; she was ten on Tuesday. I turned to Stephen. He lay motionless, with his back towards me. I could not hear him breathing. I reached out to touch him, and as I did so I remembered Lynne making a similar gesture. Soon after Eve was born, the three of us had gone for a walk in the park. We were strolling along beneath the horse chestnuts when, in the middle of a remark about her mother, Lynne had suddenly stopped, reached into the pram, and put her hand on Eve's back. She turned to me and smiled. “Just checking,” she said. From then on, I had imagined her bending over the tiny body of her daughter a dozen times a day to verify the astonishing presence of life.
Under my hand I felt Stephen warm and breathing. I edged out of bed and as quietly as possible gathered up my clothes and went to the kitchen. Through the window above the sink I saw that the flagstones behind the house were dark with water and the rose bushes were drooping. It had rained heavily during the night and was still drizzling slightly.
As was so often the case in Edinburgh, however, the beginning of the day was not a promise of its maturity. Even by the time I had dressed and drunk a cup of tea, the dense ceiling of cloud had lifted; there was a slight breeze and a substantial patch of blue sky. I scarcely needed my jacket to
walk to the corner shop, and when Mr. Murgatee, who was behind the counter, claimed that it was a grand day, I agreed.
I arrived home to find Stephen in the kitchen. He was standing in his dressing gown, looking out of the window. “I think the rain's going to hold off, don't you?” he asked.
“Yes, it's a grand day,” I said blithely.
He laughed. “You're turning into a proper Scot when you can call this a grand day, but as long as it isn't actually pouring, I think it would be fun to go to the island.”
“It's not going to pour, you'll see.”
“All right,” he said, “you're the expert. Did you feed Selina?”
“No. Will you? I want to start on the cake.”
“I'll do it as soon as I've put some clothes on.” He made us each a mug of coffee and went to put his words into action.
I found the recipe I was planning to follow; the instructions seemed simple enough, and in the photograph on the facing page the cake looked magnificent. I began to measure out flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder. Tobias prowled around my feet, meowing hopefully whenever I opened the fridge. The last person for whom I had made a birthday cake was my father. We had been alone togetherâmy mother was away taking care of an aunt who had slipped a discâand I had decided to surprise him. After an energetic search I had managed to find all the necessary ingredients tucked away in various cupboards; some, like the tin of baking powder speckled with rust, looked as if they were as old as I was. My mother never baked, but I had often watched Ruth. Full of urgent importance, I measured and mixed; like the perfect cake, my father's affection for me would rise.
Perhaps the ancient ingredients had lost their power, or the frequency with which I opened the oven door may have had something to do with it, but the cake remained obstinately concave. Even when the sides had not only risen but turned from golden to dark brown, the middle was still sunken and
moist. In such circumstances, Ruth always said, “What the eye doesn't see â¦,” cut off the burnt bits, and concealed the various imperfections by the lavish use of icing. I endeavoured to follow her example.
My father behaved perfectly. He was surprised, ate two slices, and claimed that the cake was delicious. Although I was struggling with my own portion, I was happy to believe him.
The following day when I came home from school my mother was back. I rushed into the kitchen. “I made a cake for Daddy's birthday,” I said.
“I didn't know you could cook.” She cocked her head to look at me as if I had revealed some astonishing new accomplishment.
“Ruth showed me.”
“Good old Ruth. As long as you're not wasting time doing domestic science.”
While she made tea for herself, I cut us each a substantial slice. We sat down at the kitchen table, and she asked what had happened at school.
“Mrs. Pomfret was ill, so we got to go to the library instead of having a history test. And in English we're doing
The Merchant of Venice
and I'm Jessica.”
“Jessica,” said my mother, wrinkling her nose. “She's such a Goody Two-shoes.” She looked closely at the cake, took a small mouthful, and burst out laughing. “Oh, dear, it must be hereditary. You're as bad at baking as I am.” She went and tipped her slice into the dustbin and came back with a packet of chocolate biscuits.
In spite of twenty years, fresh ingredients, and an electric beater, Jenny's cake too was slightly concave. I covered it with white icing, wrote the number “10” in Smarties on the top, and placed candle holders around the perimeter. The result was lopsided but colourful, and Stephen praised it exuberantly.
We were not collecting Jenny until two, and for once, to save time, I accompanied Stephen. While he went inside, I sat in the car, reading the newspaper; I wanted to give the impression to any observer that I was perfectly at ease. I had finished the front page and was in the middle of a review of a book about Florence Nightingale, when a tapping sound made me look up. I let out a stifled gasp. She had pressed her face against the glass. The nose was flattened into a grotesque white blob, the lips into a reddish wound; two dark eyes stared at me. Then Jenny stepped back, giggling. I pulled myself together and rolled down the window. “Hello, how are you?” I said.
“Okay.”
Stephen opened the driver's door and asked if Jenny could sit in front; she was prone to carsickness on longer journeys. I climbed out and paused to take off my jacket. As I stood on the pavement, twisting my arms out of the sleeves, a woman appeared in the doorway across the street. “Jenny,” she called, and held up an article of clothing.
Half in and half out of my jacket, I stood as still as I had in childhood when we played statues; if only a small cloud could descend and render me invisible. At the sound of her mother's voice, Jenny, who was standing beside me, turned. She was about to dash across the street, but Stephen said, “Wait! There's a car coming.”
Several cars passed, and then Helen, bright and decisive in her purple cardigan and grey trousers, ran across the street. “You forgot your sweater,” she said, handing Jenny the garment.
She turned to me, smiling, and held out her hand. “Hello. I'm Helen.”
I extricated myself from my jacket and found myself shaking her hand. The knowledge that I was blushing intensified my embarrassment. “Hello,” I managed to say.
“Jenny's told me lots about you,” she said. “Have a nice
day, you three.” She nodded her head to include Stephen and her daughter, as well as me, in her wide smile, then ran back across the street, with light tripping movements that seemed designed to draw attention to her grace and good humour. In the doorway she paused to wave.
We all got into the car. Stephen gave me a quick smile; the three women in his life had met, albeit briefly, and there had been neither shouts nor blows. I was scarcely aware that the engine had started and that we were pulling away from the curb. I felt that in some mysterious fashion Helen had got the better of me. I was the second wife, a temporary amusement, graciously admitted to the family by the senior wife.
In the front seat Stephen was telling Jenny about the picnic.
“What about Selina?” she asked.
“You'll see Selina later. We have to have the picnic first because we're going to the island at Cramond.”
“Oh, will we go by boat?”
“No, there's a causeway we can walk across, but only at low tide. We'll have to be careful not to get cut off.”
“Then we'd have to stay until we were rescued,” Jenny said, gleefully.
The sun had come out, but dark clouds were massing in the very quarter towards which we were heading. Stephen announced that we must, as his family had done at the beginning of every trip, sing “The sun has got his hat on.”
“What happened if it was raining?” Jenny asked.
“We had to sing even louder, so that the sun would hear us behind the clouds and know that he had a duty to shine forth.”
We sang the song twice through, and by the time we reached the shore the ominous clouds did seem to have thinned. Stephen parked by the side of the road, and we unloaded the picnic basket and the rucksack. The island was only a few hundred yards from the mainland, and at low tide, the causeway stretched intact from shore to shore.
Jenny scampered over the rocks to the water's edge. She sat down to take off her socks and shoes and then set out for the island. I had hoped that there would be a chance to speak to Stephen about Helen, explain how the encounter, apparently so friendly, had nonetheless upset me, but he stuck close to Jenny; any private conversation would have to wait until evening. The causeway was covered with barnacles and occasional tufts of seaweed. I walked carefully, avoiding the pools of water that still lingered in some places.
When I reached the shore, Jenny was putting on her shoes and Stephen was skipping stones. “Hey, Celia,” he said. “I've managed four bounces.”
I set down the picnic basket and looked for a suitably flat stone. I found a thin, grey one and spun it out over the water; it bounced once, then sank. “Come on,” Jenny called. “I want to see the rest of the island.”
A path wound up the steep grassy bank and she led the way, followed by Stephen, then me. At the top of the rise we saw a middle-aged couple sitting over their picnic. We said hello. The woman looked up from pouring tea out of a thermos. “Hello,” she said. “We were just saying we could be on a desert island. You're the first people we've seen all afternoon.”
“A desert island,” exclaimed Jenny with pleasure.
As we continued along the path, a low concrete structure came into view. “What is it?” Jenny asked.
“I think it must be one of the lookout posts that they built during the Second World War when they were guarding the coast,” Stephen said. “They probably had soldiers here keeping watch.”
Jenny charged down the slope towards the building. Several sheep scattered in alarm and then resumed their grazing a few yards away. The door was sealed shut, and she asked Stephen to lift her up to one of the narrow slit windows. I peered in through another. It was too dark to see anything,
but on my face I felt the damp coldness of the interior. I walked round the building. On the wall overlooking the sea the words “Terry and Rita forever” were written in white paint; several beer cans lay scattered on the ground below. It was hard to believe that within living memory people had seriously prepared to defend this island and the city that lay behind it.
In the next small valley were the remains of several houses. Amid the stone walls nettles grew to an astonishing height. We left the main path and headed to the eastern shore. In a few minutes we were standing at the top of a grassy bank, which sloped gently at first, then more steeply, down to the water. The breeze had dropped, and it was almost hot. Stephen pointed out the Bass Rock, a dark knob on the horizon.
“Shall we stay here?” I asked. On my cheek I felt the faint tickling of an insect.
“What about over there?” Stephen pointed vaguely along the shore.
“It's nice being under the birch trees,” I said. He at once put down the rucksack. I shook out the blanket. It billowed like a counterpane and descended onto the knee-high grass. From behind me, without warning, Jenny dived, with a whoop. She rolled over onto her back, pulling the blue and red checked fabric around her. “I'm a caterpillar.”
I looked down at her small, pale face, the straight hair neatly braided back. “Why don't you grow up and fly away?” I demanded. I was taken aback by the anger in my voice.
“No. This is my cocoon.”
I bent down and seized the edge of the blanket, about to pull it from under her. Then Stephen raised his hands to his mouth and let out a strange screech; he was blowing through a blade of grass. “Come on, Jenny,” he said. “Come and look at the sea.”
She scrambled to her feet. “I want some grass too.”
“Over here. Can you manage without me?”
I nodded, and he led Jenny off in search of the ideal blade of grass. I began to unpack the picnic. Plates, containers of sandwiches, glasses, and bottles of lemonade stood topsy-turvy on the uneven surface of the blanket. I could no longer see Stephen and Jenny, but from the direction of the shore came occasional squeals. Around me in the long grass the insects buzzed and hummed.
“Stephen, Jenny,” I called, when everything was ready.
They appeared almost immediately. “It's time for surprises,” I said. “Jenny, you have to go over to that rock and promise not to look until we call you.”