Secrets and shadows, p.22
Secrets and Shadows, page 22
‘Game, set and match to Mr Mercer,’ said Christopher to Marnie and Morwenna who were sitting either side of him.
‘We’ve still got lunch to get through,’ Marnie reminded them. ‘I’m not sure who I’d back for the last word, but Bunty sure has staying power!’ She giggled. ‘Perhaps she should have kept the blue war paint on – that would have been a good puzzle for a mystery writer to solve.’ They told Morwenna about Bunty’s decorative efforts at deflecting ultra-violet rays.
‘I wouldn’t have thought the sun would have caused her a problem anyway,’ said Morwenna with uncharacteristic tartness as they made their way over to the house to meet Jonathan Mercer over lunch. ‘Bunty strikes me as amazingly thick-skinned. Everyone’s always snubbing her or laughing at her but whenever I start to feel agonised on her behalf I realise that she hasn’t even noticed. She goes crashing on completely unaware of the effect she has on everyone.’
‘Lucky her! I’ll bet she manages to sit next to Mr Mercer at lunch,’ said Marnie. ‘Just look.’ They looked and watched with amusement as Bunty tunnelled her way through the throng of the departing audience with a dedication that would have done credit to a mole bent on wrecking a grass tennis court. But if buttonholing the guest speaker was her intention, she was to be thwarted, because Isobel, a practised hostess, had done a careful placement for the dining room and put little name cards by each setting.
Christopher found himself next to the guest of honour and sent Isobel an appreciative smile. He also raised an eyebrow at Catherine who was sitting on the other side of the table, and she nodded at him encouragingly. She had obviously primed Jonathan beforehand, because immediately they were all seated he said: ‘Ah – my rival crime writer I believe? I hear I’ve got a treat in store and possibly some serious competition in the future. I’m usually very cautious about accepting requests to read the manuscripts of first novels, because it can be so awful dashing people’s hopes and yet it’s unforgivable to give false expectations. It’s a tough, over-subscribed and highly commercial market. However, Catherine is an old friend and colleague. We’ve taken creative writing courses together and know how each other’s minds work. I have a huge respect for her opinion.’ He shot Christopher a shrewd look through his thick spectacles. ‘In fact it’s rare for her to ask favours – so you must be exceptional. I’ll do what I can to help. If your book is as gripping as she says, I think my agent might be interested. I gather you’ve recently had some useful background experiences too,’ he added with a twinkle.
Christopher laughed, very much liking his neighbour. ‘You could say that. Not voluntary ones, as Catherine will have told you – a question of trying to put a bad time to some sort of use!’
Jonathan nodded. ‘Which politician was it who used to say that fulfilment in life came from practising “the art of the possible”? Anyway, I’ll read your book within the next few weeks and we’ll take it from there.’ They discussed other topics after that, discovering shared enthusiasms for fly-fishing and music until it was time for Jonathan to turn to his other side and talk to his hostess.
Apart from the members of the course and Jonathan Mercer, Giles and Isobel had invited Lord Dunbarnock, an old family friend, the chairman of the trustees and certainly Glendrochatt’s chief benefactor. His caricature was painted on the backdrop, but in real life he seemed even stranger than his depiction. His passion for vintage cars, of which he had a famous collection, sat uneasily alongside a lifelong phobia about germs – the legacy of an over-zealous nanny in his childhood – so that he spent his life getting his hands covered in engine grease and general grime while he tuned throttles and tinkered with carburettors, and then obsessively scouring them for fear lurking bacteria might smite him with some dread disease. It was rumoured that he kept antiseptic wipes in his sporran and his hands always had a raw, chapped look even in summer. Today, despite the balmy weather he was dressed in his habitual garb of kilt, tweed jacket, hairy shooting stockings and vast brogues. He presented a tall and cadaverously thin figure, but it was his long grizzled hair worn in a pigtail down his back that was the real surprise about his appearance. In his youth he had taken a bet that he wouldn’t go a year without shaving or having his hair cut. He had won the bet, but the hirsute habit had remained: his one gesture of defiance to his terrifying old gorgon of a mother. Recently he had stunned the locality by having his beard shaved off for the first time in over forty years. Giles, who was extremely fond of him and took liberties that no one else dared to do, had suggested that the Scottish Tourist Board had listed a sighting of an unshaven Dunbarnock chin as one of the great moments of Scottish wildlife watching – almost on a par with a glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster – and that kind-hearted Neil Dunbarnock had only shaved to give the summer holidaymakers a better chance of observing this mythical attraction. It would have been easy to write him off as an oddball aristocrat, not to be taken seriously, but he had a close circle of devoted admirers who knew the extent of his erudition, the kindness of his heart and the generosity of his pocket. The fact that they loved him, however, did not stop his friends from laughing about him and regaling each other with tales of his latest eccentricities. As Giles and Isobel often said to each other, life would be much, much duller without him.
The uninitiated, however, could find him conversationally taxing. There were plenty of subjects about which he knew a great deal – sometimes unexpected ones – and on which, once launched, he could be extremely interesting, but he was painfully shy and it wasn’t easy to get him going. Giles maintained that he was like one of his own cars – you had first to know how to swing the sometimes unyielding starting handle, and then how to adjust the choke to feed in the right conversational mixture.
Isobel, who had placed Lord Dunbarnock on her left, had taken a deliberate gamble in putting Marnie on his other side. Giles thought she should have put Louisa, who had met him several times before, next to him. Louisa’s social skills were well up to the challenge of flirting decorously with Lord Dunbarnock – enough to flatter, but not enough to alarm him – but Isobel wanted to see how Marnie would cope with the challenge. She had a hunch these two awkward but curiously endearing characters might take to each other. She was not disappointed. It was not the elderly or the peculiar that Marnie found threatening, but the glamorous and socially confident. From the moment when Isobel switched her attention from Neil Dunbarnock to Jonathan Mercer, he and Marnie got on famously. By the end of lunch Neil Dunbarnock, enchanted to discover a fellow blues and jazz enthusiast who could match him fact for fact on such details as the Mississippi river boats on which “old Satchel-mouth” Louis Armstrong had first played and sung, had suggested that she come over to Dunbarnock to inspect his collection of jazz recordings, which included such legendary New Orleans’ blues greats as Bessie Anderson and Billie Holiday – a rare invitation for a new acquaintance – and Marnie had confided in him about her search for a particular and possibly non-existent ancient house.
‘I hope you find it,’ he said. ‘I will give it some thought. How much longer are you staying here?’
‘Another week. We’ve been too busy writing to do any exploring yet, but Giles and Isobel are going to show us something of the neighbourhood next week.’
‘Then I’ll talk to Isobel and see if they could bring you all over for a drink. You might enjoy seeing my house. It’s what is sometimes called a “fortalice” – a fairly typical fortified house with a tower and a good hotchpotch of styles. Most of my ancestors have meddled with it in some way over many generations. You have to realise that there are many so-called castles in this part of the world. Anything with pretensions to a tower and sprouting a few bunion-like turrets here and there gets called a castle – as mine is. Some of them are the genuine article and some of course are purely Victorian.’
‘What bits of yours have you meddled with?’
‘Not a great deal structurally.’ He smiled at her. ‘Being a confirmed old bachelor I’m pretty resistant to change and the inside of the house is much as it was in my parents’ day.’ He added drily: ‘And equally cold and inconvenient, so I’m told, but I don’t really notice those things. Not being a hunting man – unlike most of my forebears – my contribution has been to convert the old stables into garages for my collection of cars. I prefer engines to equestrianism.’
‘Oh me, too!’ Marnie decided that she liked her eccentric neighbour very much. ‘Could I see your cars if I came over, as well as the records?’
‘You could, I suppose,’ he said rather doubtfully, ‘but in my experience, most women seem to find them rather boring.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Marnie decisively. ‘I’ve been driving since I was a kid of eleven – not on the highway, of course – but my father’s a real car freak. He’s got his own racetrack back home in Virginia. He had me and my half-brothers practising on skidpads as soon as we could steer an old banger round the track. My father’s got a 1933 Packard V12 which comes out on state occasions. It’s known in the family as “Dad’s mistress” – though goodness knows he’s had plenty of the real variety too. And he adores roaring round in his old Ford Mustang. I enjoy driving that too. But then I love driving . . . almost anything.’
‘What is it you specially like about it?’ Neil Dunbarnock looked at her with interest.
Marnie considered. ‘Perhaps it’s because it frees me up. I feel in control behind the wheel,’ she said at last. ‘When I was little, speed terrified me and I hated going out with my father – he used to scare the daylights out of me – till he had the bright idea of teaching me to drive myself. It was a revelation! I don’t know who was more surprised or pleased, him or me, and it’s been a great bond between us. Now it’s one of the few things I do that I’m really confident about. I’ve always been afraid of things happening that I couldn’t handle. In the English bit of my childhood we had ponies. My mother has always ridden and one of my stepfathers was an MFH, but I was terrified. My pony bolted with me once when I was about ten, and oh boy, was I shit-scared then! I lost my nerve so completely that I even faced up to my mother and said I wouldn’t ride again – and that took some courage, I can tell you. But when I’m behind the wheel I feel . . .’ She paused. ‘I suppose I feel I’m in charge,’ she said. ‘I even enjoy going fast – so long as it’s me doing the driving. It’s what other people may do that always panics me.’ She laughed and pulled a mocking face, but her companion, who was far more observant than most of his acquaintances gave him credit for, thought she looked sad. ‘I guess that goes for other things as well as driving,’ she said. ‘People just tend to frighten me . . . full stop!’
‘People frighten me too,’ said Lord Dunbarnock, smiling at her very kindly. ‘I’m much better with engines. I know what I’m doing with those. And, yes, I’d be pleased to show you my cars as well as the records if Giles and Isobel bring you over.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I might even let you drive one.’
Marnie guessed this would be a very unusual honour and was touched. It gave her a warm little glow inside to think that this eccentric and allegedly antisocial elderly bachelor should have found her company so pleasant – and an even warmer glow to know, instinctively, that across the table, Christopher was aware of this too.
Christopher, having finished talking to Jonathan Mercer, had turned to Louisa, but both were unobtrusively watching Marnie while simultaneously conducting an enjoyable and light-hearted conversation with each other.
The moment she had seen Christopher and Marnie standing under the archway holding hands, Louisa had sensed immediately that something must have shifted in their reactions to each other, but was not sure how significant it might be.
It had seemed too good to be true to find Christopher Piper at Glendrochatt just when she so badly wanted a new relationship, and she couldn’t help feeling that it must be fate that had brought this particular man back into her life at this particular moment. She was amazed at how quickly the whole writing group were getting to know each other despite such a short acquaintance. It reminded Louisa of her father’s propagating frame in his greenhouse at home – Glendrochatt was proving a sort of forcing house for relationships, she thought. The group discussions during each session, the shared emotions triggered by individual pieces of writing – these produced an intimacy that would have taken far longer to achieve through ordinary social intercourse. Since their conversation by the burn, she had found herself becoming increasingly intrigued by the American girl and liking her more and more – but she also liked Christopher more and more and was conscious of a little stab of dismay at the idea that Marnie and Christopher might be attracted to each other. It caused Louisa, who was normally blessed with the happy gift of self-confidence, an unusual moment of self-doubt. She saw that the socially diffident Marnie was clearly making a hit with batty old Lord Dunbarnock and, what is more, looking as if she was enjoying his company, which was even more surprising. Louisa recalled an expression from her native Yorkshire – “Nowt so queer as folk” – and there were certainly some rum folk in this place, she thought, looking across the table at the eccentric peer.
‘Marnie seems to be having a good time,’ she said jokingly to Christopher. ‘Americans are suckers for the aristocracy. Perhaps she’s on the lookout for a tame laird?’
‘Perhaps she is,’ said Christopher, amused but not reacting to the tease. ‘Good luck to her. But it certainly looks as if the aristocracy are equally beguiled by the Americans today.’
He was pleased to see Marnie chatting with such animation to the unusual-looking chairman of the Glendrochatt Arts Trust. What an interesting face Marnie had, he thought, looking at her with much closer attention than he had when they first met: a face that you would not get tired of looking at. Goodness, thought Christopher uneasily, what is happening? I hardly know her. How unexpected to find two such attractive young women on the course. He certainly had not come looking for romance. He had been conscious of the appeal of Louisa from the start, but was surprised to find himself increasingly drawn to Marnie. Is it just a reaction to the last two awful years? Am I going wild, like a horse let out to grass after being stabled all winter, he wondered – but he didn’t think so.
He remembered a conversation in the early days of his infatuation with Nicola. He had been perversely trying to goad his mother into criticising her – something she had steadfastly refused to do – so that he could have the satisfaction of arguing with her. His mother had been infuriatingly resistant to his provocative needling, but had eventually silenced him with a question of her own.
‘If you look at Nicola’s face, are you moved?’ she had asked suddenly.
‘Moved? Moved by desire, do you mean?’ he’d hedged, deliberately misinterpreting her.
‘Of course I’m not talking about desire. Don’t be stupid, Christopher. I’m talking about emotion. Does she move you?’
‘Oh, Ma!’ he’d said irritably. ‘You do talk in riddles sometimes. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’
But of course he had known very well. Now, he thought, if she asked me the same question about Marnie, my response might be different. Marnie does move me. But I mustn’t get carried away, he thought. He couldn’t fail to be aware that Louisa was interested in him and he certainly didn’t want to hurt her, though he didn’t for a moment think it represented anything more serious than an invitation to enjoy a flirtation, possibly leading to a light-hearted affair. He had no doubt that an affair with Louisa would be enormous fun – that word that Nicola set such store by – but it wasn’t what he wanted any more. Perhaps they could all three just become good friends.
‘Why don’t I take you and Marnie out one evening next week?’ he said to Louisa. ‘I can’t offer to drive, but I’d love to treat you both to a really good dinner somewhere. I gather you’re staying on and Isobel’s persuaded me to stay too. I’m looking forward to it – I don’t feel ready to say goodbye to everyone here so soon after meeting them.’ Louisa wondered if this was to be taken at face value, or was it a veiled hint that he was really referring to Marnie – or did he mean herself?
‘We might get Morwenna and the Colonel to come with us too,’ he went on. ‘Nudge their budding romance on a bit.’
‘Are they having a romance?’ Louisa looked surprised.
‘Not yet, perhaps – but I think they might . . . given some encouragement.’
‘Well lucky them,’ said Louisa, laughing. ‘I have to say I hadn’t cast you in the role of Cupid, Christopher, but who knows what romantic situations might develop in another week? Anyway, it’s a lovely idea,’ she went on. ‘How good that you’ve decided to stay for the extra week too. That will be fun. Let’s suggest the plan to the others then.’ But at that moment Isobel got up and brought the lunch party to a close, so the conversation ended there.
Before he departed Jonathan Mercer came to find Christopher. He tapped the large package he had tucked under his arm. ‘All safe and sound,’ he said. ‘How can I get hold of you? I’ve just realised that I haven’t got your address. How much longer are you here for?’
‘Only another week. I’m sure you won’t have time to wade through it by then.’ Christopher fished in his pocket for a card, crossed out the details of his London flat and scribbled down his parents’ address on the back. ‘I’ve put my mobile number as well, but that’s where I’m based at the moment and where I can always be contacted.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘My movements are still a bit restricted.’
‘Of course – due to the “useful background experiences”, no doubt. Don’t worry. I’ll track you down, but don’t expect anything too soon. By the way, if I think it might be helpful, would you mind if I showed it to someone else?’
‘Mind? I’d be only too delighted. You don’t know how grateful I am . . .’
But Jonathan Mercer waved his thanks away and the two men shook hands before Jonathan went in search of Catherine and the Grants to make his farewells. Christopher watched him walk away with a heart full of hope.
