Under Gemini (25 page)

“Is that why you threw over your F.R.C.S. and came back to Tarbole?”

“I came because my father was ill.”

“You never thought of going back to London?”

“No.”

“Couldn't you still become a surgeon?”

“No. It's too late. I belong here now. Perhaps this is where I've always belonged. I'm not sure if I could have lived my life in a city, away from clean air and the smell of the sea.”

“You're just like…” Flora began, and then stopped herself just in time. She had been about to say
You're just like my father.
Listening to Hugh, she had forgotten that she was meant to be Rose. Now she found herself consumed by an entirely natural compulsion to exchange confidence for confidence, memory for memory. Hugh had opened a door, which had previously been shut and barred in her face, and she wanted very much to go through it.

But she couldn't because, as Rose, she had nothing to offer him in return. As Rose, she could share no memories, offer no comfort. The frustration of this was suddenly more than she could bear, and for a moment she actually considered spilling out the truth. In his present mood, she knew that he would understand. She had given her promise to Antony, but Hugh was, after all, a doctor. Wasn't telling a doctor a secret rather like confessing to a priest? Did it really count?

From the very beginning, all Flora's finer instincts had reacted against the lie that she and Antony had embarked upon, simply because it was bound to affect and involve other and innocent people. But now it seemed that the lie had turned, and Flora herself was caught up in its tangled coils—bound hand and foot, shackled by it, and unable to move.

Hugh waited for her to finish her sentence. When she did not, he prompted her. “Who am I like?”

“Oh…”
I promise,
she had said to Antony, only yesterday on the beach. “… Nobody. Just someone I once knew who felt the way you do.”

The moment was over. The temptation past. She was still Rose, and she did not know whether she was glad or sorry. The kitchen was warm and quiet. The only sounds came from outside. A lorry changed gears, grinding up the hill past the gate. A dog barked; a woman, climbing up from the ships with her laden basket, called across the road to her friend. The sky was filled with the scream of gulls.

The peace was terminated abruptly by the arrival of Jason. The front door opened and slammed shut with a force that shook the house. It took them by surprise, and Flora jumped and looked at Hugh and saw her own blank expression mirrored on his face. They had forgotten about Jason. Jason's high voice pierced the air.

“Rose!”

“She's here!” Hugh called back. “In the kitchen.”

Footsteps raced down the passage, the door was flung wide, and Jason burst in.

“Hello. Mr. Thomson brought me in his car and there's a great big boat in the harbor and he says it's come from Germany. Hello, Hugh.”

“Hello, old boy.”

“Hello, Rose.” He came around to her side of the table and put his arms around her neck to give her an absent-minded kiss. “Hugh, I've drawn a special picture for Tuppy. I did it this afternoon.”

“Let's see it.”

Jason struggled with the buckle of his satchel and hauled out the drawing. “Oh, bother, it's all crumpled.”

“That's all right,” said Hugh. “Bring it here.”

Jason did so, leaning against Hugh's knee. Hugh took the drawing and unfolded it carefully, smoothing out the creases on the top of the kitchen table. Once before, Flora had noticed his hands. Now, for some reason watching them deal so deftly with Jason's smudged and garish painting did something peculiar to the pit of her stomach. She heard him say, “That's a fine picture. What is it?”

“Oh, Hugh, you are stupid.”

“Elucidate.”

“I don't know what that means.”

“Explain it to me.”

“Well, look. It's an airplane and a man in a parachute. And then there's this man, and he's landed already, and he's waiting for the other man, and he's sitting under a tree.”

“I see. It's very good. Tuppy will like it. No, don't fold it again. Leave it flat. Rose will carry it for you and then it won't get creased again. Won't you, Rose?”

She was taken unawares. “What?” She looked up from the table and met the startling blue of his eyes.

“I said you'd look after the picture.”

“Yes, of course I will.”

“Are you having tea?” asked Jason. “Is there anything to eat?” He looked about him hopefully.

Flora remembered the ditched fruitcake. “I don't know. We just had a cup of tea.”

Hugh said, “If you look in that red tin on the dresser there might be a biscuit.”

Jason fetched the tin, put it on the table and wrestled it open. He produced from it a large chocolate biscuit, wrapped in silver paper.

“Can I have this?”

“If you want to risk it. I've no idea how long it's been there.”

Jason removed the paper and took an experimental mouthful. “It's all right. A bit soggy, but it's all right.” Munching, he stared from High's face to Flora's. “Why didn't you come for me, Rose?”

“I was making Hugh a cup of tea. You didn't mind, did you?”

“No, I didn't mind.” He came to lean against her. She put her arm around him and pressed her chin against the top of his head. “I played with the train set,” he told her in a voice of the deepest satisfaction. Flora began to laugh. She glanced across at Hugh, expecting to have him share her amusement, but he did not seem to have heard Jason. His expression was abstracted and withdrawn, and he was watching the two of them with the total absorption of a man on the verge of making some marvelous discovery.

*   *   *

Jason was in bed, Tuppy safely tucked away upstairs, and Rose had departed—looking very charming—to be given dinner by Brian Stoddart. Isobel sat alone by the fire, doing her knitting and listening to Mozart. To be on her own was for her a rare pleasure; to listen to Mozart instead of the nine o'clock news on television, an even rarer one. It caused Isobel a slight pang of guilt, because Tuppy always listened to the nine o'clock news, and the reason Isobel didn't have to was because Tuppy was ill. But the guilt was not enough to be troublesome. And she had had a busy day. After all that telephoning, she felt exhausted. Squelching her conscience, Isobel knitted on, reveling in the novelty of self-indulgence.

The telephone rang. She sighed, glanced at the clock, drove her needles through the ball of wool, and went out into the hall to answer it. It was Hugh Kyle. “Yes, Hugh.”

“Isobel, I'm sorry to disturb you, but is Rose there?”

“No, I'm sorry, she's not.”

“Oh. Well, never mind.”

“Can I give her a message?”

“It's just that … she was here this afternoon delivering a splendid pie Mrs. Watty made, and she's left her gloves behind. At least, I think they must be hers. And I didn't want her to think she'd lost them.”

“I'll tell her. I won't see her again this evening, but I'll tell her in the morning.”

“Has she gone out?”

“Yes.” Isobel smiled, because it was so pleasant for Rose, bereft of Antony's company, to be having some fun. “Brian Stoddart's taken her out for dinner.”

There was a long silence, and then Hugh said, faintly, “What?”

“Brian Stoddart's taken her out for dinner. Anna's away so they're keeping each other company.”

“Where have they gone?”

“I think to Lochgarry. Brian said something about the Fishers' Arms. He had a drink here before they went.”

“I see.”

“I'll tell Rose about the gloves.”

“What?” He sounded as though he had forgotten about the gloves. “Oh, yes. Any time. It doesn't matter. Goodnight, Isobel.”

Even for Hugh, that was fairly abrupt. “Goodnight,” said Isobel. She put down the receiver and stood for a moment, wondering if something was wrong. But nothing occurred to her. Just her imagination. She turned off the light and went back to the music.

*   *   *

Lochgarry lay some fifteen miles to the south of Fernrigg, at the head of a sea loch and on the junction of the main roads from Fort William, from Tarbole, and from Morven and Ardnamuchan to the south. Long ago, it had been simply a small community of fisherfolk, with a modest inn to serve the needs of infrequent travelers. But then the railways had come, bringing in their wake wealthy sportsmen from England, and after that nothing was the same again. The Lochgarry Castle Hotel was built to accommodate not only the sportsmen, but their retinues of families, friends, and servants, and in August and September the surrounding hills echoed to the crack of guns.

After the Second World War, things changed again. Industry arrived, in the shape of a huge sawmill and lumberyards. More houses went up, as did a new school to take the place of the old single-room schoolhouse, and a little cottage hospital. The roads were widened and improved, and summer traffic swelled over the years to a flood. The seafields which sloped down to the water were transformed into caravan sites, and an area of rough pasture banked with clumps of whin and gorse had been landscaped into a nine-hole golf course.

The Fishers' Arms, the little inn which had stood facing out over the loch for as long as anybody could remember, bore witness to all that change. Over the years it had been many times enlarged, improved with bow windows, decorated with porches, painted white and trellised with creepers. Inside, up crooked stairs and down sloping passages, were not only bedrooms, but bathrooms as well. One owner built a bar. Another built a restaurant. A third bulldozed the garden into a car park. By the time Flora set eyes on it, its original modest form was lost forever.

The car park, when they reached it, seemed full. Brian parked his car and they stepped out into the blowy dusk. The air smelt of seaweed, and random lights of cottages were reflected in the dark waters of the loch. From inside the inn came sounds of clashing crockery, the smell of good food cooking.

“It seems to be very popular,” Flora observed.

“It is. But don't worry, I booked a table.” He tucked his hand beneath her arm, and they crossed the car park and went up the steps and through the main door. Inside were bright lights and tartan carpeting and plastic flower arrangements. A notice pointed up the stairs to the ladies', and Flora detached herself gently from Brian, and said that she would go upstairs and shed her coat.

“You do that. You'll find me in the bar.”

A white-coated waiter appeared. “Good evening, Mr. Stoddart. It's a long time since we've seen you.”

“Hello, John. I hope you've got a good dinner for us tonight.”

In the meantime, Flora made her way upstairs and found a ladies' that was a marvel of floral wallpaper and mauve flouncing. She took off her coat, hung it up, and went to the mirror to comb her hair. For the occasion she had put on her turquoise wool skirt (inevitable, as she had no other) and a long-sleeved black sweater. But she had dressed without enthusiasm, not really wanting to keep this date with Brian, but knowing that she had no excuse for getting out of it. Because of that, she had taken little trouble with her appearance, yet it seemed to be one of those times when everything looked right. Her hair shone like a fall of silk, her skin bloomed, her dark eyes were bright.

“You look so pretty,” Isobel had said.

“You're glittering like something off a Christmas tree,” Brian had told her as he packed her into his car, a shining maroon 3.5-liter Mercedes. Flora had found time to wonder whether Brian had paid for it, or his wife. The drive from Fernrigg had been immensely fast, though otherwise without incident, and they had talked of trivialities. Whether this had been Brian's intention or Flora's own, she was not entirely sure.

She went downstairs. The bar was crowded, but Brian had somehow managed to get the best table by the fire. When she appeared through the door he stood up and waited for her to join him. She was aware of being watched. Eyes followed her across the room as though the sight of a woman who was unfamiliar, young, and attractive, was something not to be missed.

He smiled, as much for the audience as for her.

“Come and sit by the fire. I've ordered you a drink.” They sat down, and he reached in his pocket and took out a gold cigarette case and held it out to her. When she shook her head, he took one for himself and lit it with a gold lighter that had his initials engraved upon it. He already had a tumbler of whisky on the table before him, but now Flora's drink came, borne on a silver tray.

The glass was frosted with ice. “What is it?”

“It's a martini, of course. What else would it be?” Flora was about to tell him that she never drank martinis, but he went on, “And I ordered it specially dry, the way you like them.”

As he had apparently gone to so much trouble, it seemed churlish to refuse the drink. Flora took it from the tray and the cold burned her fingers. Brian raised his whisky to her, and his eyes watched her across the rim of the tumbler.

“Slaintheva,” he said.

“I don't speak the language.”

“It means ‘good health.' It's Gaelic. The only word of Gaelic I've learned since I've lived here.”

“I'm sure it's a very useful word. I'm sure it gets you out of all sorts of awkward situations.”

He smiled, and she took a mouthful of the martini and almost choked. It was like drinking cold fire, and took her breath away. Gasping, she set down the glass and he laughed at her. “What's wrong?”

“It's so strong.”

“Rubbish, you ought to be used to them. You never used to drink anything else.”

“I haven't had one … lately.”

“Rose, you're not reforming, are you?” He sounded genuinely concerned. “I couldn't bear it. You used to drink martinis without batting an eyelid, and chain-smoke to boot.”