When They Lay Bare Page 6

  You should know. It’s your estate.

  His father grunted, tapped his boot into the side panelling as though testing it for rot. He seemed unable to come further into the room. David wondered if he was stoned again, though it seemed kind of early.

  In the village they think she’s your bit on the side, he said.

  Heh – I thought she might be yours. His father giggled, tapped the wood again. Disgusting phrase, he added.

  David nodded. About as pathetic as the reality, he said quietly.

  Simon Elliot’s head came up quick at that.

  You don’t do that sort of thing, do you?

  No. Because you did.

  Elliot produced a roll-up from his palm, lit it and looked back up at his son.

  I sometimes think, he said, self-righteousness might be worse for the health than smoking. You’ve an awful big intake of it these days. Have you never slipped up with the fiancée woman? With anyone?

  David turned back to the window. His lip was definitely swollen. Odd. It hadn’t been that much of a kiss. Nice. Uninvited. Over.

  Slip up, he said. His voice sounded thick and odd, and his heart was much too fast. Of course he had, often, in the London time, but that was over. So you call an adulterous affair with your neighbour’s wife which lasted – just how many years? – you call that a slip-up?

  The silence went on and on. Somewhere in the scullery a clink as Annie Tat moved around. At last his father’s head turned away.

  No, Elliot said. He looked round the dim dining room as though the true word for what it had been lay there, muddled in the curtains or buried behind the panelling or hidden within the portraits of his ancestors. No, he said again. It was not that.

  He looked so weary David took the first two steps towards him. His father looked straight at him, just for a moment, and what David saw in his eyes was a fall that had no end.

  You’ve never been there, Elliot said. Love? You may be marrying this lass but I think you havena been there.

  David turned away sick at the longing he’d seen, and for the first time wondered just what and who his father had silently mourned for twenty-plus years. He wished he could spit.

  Your idea of love isn’t mine. His voice wasn’t steady. His father took a long drag and stared at him mockingly. I suppose you’ll tell me it just happened, you and the woman.

  His father’s foot swung back and stirred in the air an inch or so off the floor.

  It happened, he said. But believe me, there was no just about it.

  He dropped the fag end and watched it smoke on the wooden floor. His foot came down, squashed, turned.

  Some of us still believe in free will, David muttered.

  Some of us ken damn all, laddie. I married a woman I knew could never break my heart. And that – he lifted his boot and peered at the evidence – was my real crime against your mother.

  David stepped back, turned away, turned back again.

  You’ve a fucking nerve. Your real crime –

  His father put his hands out like trying to stop headlong traffic.

  Davy. You hate, loathe, despise, whatever, me. Dinna blame you. I’ve let you down all my life. But listen to this. Listen. He frowned, looked out the window. You thought about it long and chose to marry Jo?

  Glad she’s got a name now. Yes. That’s what I’ve chosen. We chose.

  Then don’t. If it felt like a choice … Anything of weight is fated, David. It’s inevitable or nothing.

  Marriage guidance. Who’d have thought it? Save the hippie haivers, Dad. I’m out of here.

  Elliot’s arm shot out, braced against the door frame. David stopped with the arm against his chest.

  My bad timing, son. I’ve forgotten how to act. Maybe I should get out more.

  Aye, take a daunder over to Crawhill yourself if you’re so curious.

  His father shook like a dog throwing off water.

  Canna do that. No Crawhill.

  His voice was thick in the throat.

  Why not?

  It’s ower far.

  Take the Land-Rover. Or the short cut across the Liddie Burn.

  Elliot’s face had gone white. David thought he was going to faint, and put his arm out.

  You all right, Dad?

  Yon way is no wise. Don’t use it. Please dinna use it.

  He was leaning heavily against the door frame. Christ, the old bugger’s fried his brains. His voice keeps changing register. It’s pathetic.

  What’s she doing there – the lassie?

  You really don’t know? David shrugged. Hard to say. Reading and writing things. Pottering. Looking at plates.

  Plates? Elliot’s head jerked forward. What like plates?

  I didn’t really see them. Big ones. Old-fashioned-looking with bits of picture. She put them away, we ate off plain ones.

  She had painted plates … What’s her name? Did she say her name?

  What is this, Dad?

  A fierce grip on his arm, face up close.

  Name.

  Dad, she’s doing no harm. Maybe she’s getting over something. I don’t know, honest. Look, she’ll only be a couple of weeks. She’s tidy and that. Why not leave her be?

  Her name. Tat didna get her name.

  Mary, if it matters.

  Mary … He said the name slow and long, dragged it out like the setting sun on broken water. You’re sure it was Mary?

  That’s what she said.

  His father grunted.

  Surname. Family name.

  Allan. Mary Allan.

  His father’s breath hissed out as he leaned back on the door frame. Then he looked up and grinned like it was nothing.

  If she’s no doing any harm, she can stay. Two weeks most. I’ll send Tat.

  No, I’ll tell her.

  Stay away from there, Davy.

  Maybe she’d rather hear it from me.

  You hear?

  David turned away to look out at the track that ran from the end of the garden towards the woods and the Liddie and the mirk there.

  Why do you still keep Crawhill empty? he said over his shoulder. Why not rent it out – or just sell it?

  I told you – just have nothing to do with it. I’ll talk to Tat, maybe get more sense out of him.

  Again that terrible longing that made David want to belt him one. He took long slow breaths and let the rage fade.

  Did you and … Jinny … meet there?

  Silence. When David turned round, his father was gone.

  *

  You cross, uncross your legs, and feel that old heat rising. Lock ankles tighter round the kitchen chair, prop elbows on the wooden table and stare down the glen to the distant grey threads of the headwaters of the Tweed. Most of the time you like living like this. You feel secure alone with books or plates or voices. They are – be frank – easier and often more interesting company than real people, whatever they might be. Only once in a while do you think perhaps you are too much alone, and wonder why.

  It’s been a long day with only voices for company. My choice, I know. Still I almost regret sending David Elliot away. Even the damned factor would do as a visitor. With only the plates and reference books to anchor to, sometimes they become light too and I start to float away from who and where I am. As though I was just another option on the radio. But I’m back now.

  My lurking watcher crossed the fields this afternoon, glanced up my way but went on by, so it seems for the time being I’m allowed to stay. So what does that tell you about Sim Elliot? Wheesht. Tat’s an odd one, right enough, looks between a convict, a dancer, and a monk. That light body and elongated grey shaven head like a bullet, such quick eyes, and the way he moves from one spot to another without anything inbetween. He’ll need attending to. Be quiet!

  David Elliot and I did talk, overlapping, for the entire time. He really was here, I didn’t invent that. And he doesn’t look so like the young man on the plates, just one of those partial rhymes we call family resemblance. But we h
eard a lot about each other that seemed significant but which neither of us remembers a fraction of. Still, interest flew down, grasped its perch and never took its raven eyes off us. It’s my only attendant now as the light greys.

  Ah, blethers. He’s not the one I’m after but there were invisible strings between us. And as we talked and our hands passed each other mugs of tea and toast and biscuits, I was already constructing my story-lines. I haven’t quite decided whether the damaged academic Canadian fiancée – I can see now her big eyes and skinny nervy sickly body, and understand how honoured he feels by her trust – is to be my rival or my ally in whatever my purpose turns out to be. I’ve known your purpose since the plates came to you.

  I am too much alone. I shall lie down a while in the room where Jinny and Patrick lay. These hands, this blanket, that tiny photo by my head, these are real enough. Though no one sees me or holds me, I am real. Tell me what to do and what I must not.

  Wait for the breeze to shift and change the whisper in the window frame. I is just another voice, don’t be too taken with its insistence it’s the only one. Follow instead down the plate till you come on a casement window, a man and another woman, leaning together, so faint now it’s hard to say what she’s doing with her strong elbows either side of his neck. Notice too the neighbouring panel is that high stepped cliff again, and this time there is only one person standing at the top. The other is halfway down, a tiny reddish splotch with thin limbs or feelers, like a mosquito squashed on a white wall. But look away, you are not ready yet.

  When she judged the time right, Annie Tattersall came up the back stair. She stood behind the big hunched man with the long grey ponytail who leaned his head against the window glass and screwed his forehead round and round as though trying to wear a hole through to the other side.

  Is your head bad, Sim?

  Aye. Very bad.

  He turned, looked up at her. His pupils were huge, taking in too much light.

  Most of all I see her falling. My arm goes out and she spins away, loose soil on the ledge spurts from under her foot, I see the red stone beneath. Then her head turns back to me, speechless for a moment before she falls. She looks and then she falls, and my soul waits to be judged by the expression in her huge eyes, her parting lips, her silence as she disappears.

  Annie put both arms out, lowered them onto his rigid shoulders. A puff of breath came out of him as his head dropped onto her chest. Her strong thumbs reach down the back of his neck. She gets in under the ponytail, sets her feet and begins to work.

  *

  In the time of the reivers, when cattle or wife were stolen, house burned and men kidnapped or hanged according to their worth, there were two distinct kinds of revenge: Hot Trod or Cold Trod. When a force rode out hot trod, signalled by a smoking turf at the point of the lance, no one could stop or impede it. (See also: red-handed). That was the law in all the Marches, both sides of the Border. One even had the right to call on assistance. And if the perpetrators were found, all reasonable force could be employed to obtain justice – which commonly came from a sword or rope. Hot trod revenge had to be commenced inside a week – unless there were reasons making quick pursuit impossible. Otherwise it was adjudged cold trod and normal process of law – often unreliable owing to the complex allegiances and political factors involved in the Borderlands – applied.

  It was most important to be wary when riding out on hot trod revenge, because the original wrong could be a ruse to lure one into ambush off home ground, as many a Borderer discovered too late.

  These were a ruthless, passionate people of quick temper but long memory. To be hot-headed was dangerous, and those who lived in the Borderlands adjudged that time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted …

  I drop my book, roll off the bed and go through to the kitchen. As I lace up my boots, I say I’m just going for a daunder into the woods. Take a look at that bridge over the falls that frightened him so. Check out the source of that distant continuous rumble and spray and see where old man Lauder went down. I’ve put that off since I arrived, like a bairn saving a treat. Now it’s time.

  On with the cape, its dark green will be hard to make out in the woods. Close the door and click the padlock. In my position it’s not good to have folk wandering in and going through my things. A mild drizzle hisses down through the air, shifting, cooling, continuous, like stories told to oneself. At the far end of the bridge must be the short-cut path on to the big house, though that would not be wise, not yet.

  *

  Just keep an eye on her‚ Tat‚ Elliot said to me‚ and on the boy and all. Do nothing for the whiles.

  Sim Elliot’s a fool. To my mind, he’s letting her stay to impress Davy with his generosity, and maybe to allay his mind, as though so small a thing could bring redress.

  The way I see it, the woman’s a fence-louper trying her luck, though I’ll admit she’s no ordinary squatter. I see again her shadowed eyes fixed calm on me in the kitchen, and I grue a little. While I baited young Davy, she fixed on me and never blinked once that I saw. That’s not an easy trick – the only man I kent could do that wasn’t right in the head. For a full minute she sat stone-still with her white feet bare on the floor, as though she was one who came from the place where leaves never fall and rain never hits the ground.

  But her name is Mary Allan and I can’t see Jinny in her. She is not the one Elliot has waited for all these years. Or so I tell myself as I carve and hollow out my wee netsuke man.

  All the whiles I’m looking up across the fields to Crawhill and nothing happens till afore the gloaming and I see a flicker of movement. Now I’ve got her in the glasses, coming out the door and walking east towards the Lauder Burn, and I’m on my way, Simon Elliot’s man, with an ancient half-truth drilling holes in my conscience.

  *

  She crossed the dyke and took the narrow track into the woods where the silver birch trunks glowed dim. Her fingertips knew coarse sycamore and rough-barked oak, and scratchy pine plucked at her cloak. She followed the muddy track into the deeper dark, ducking silently under branches as she moved closer to the falls.

  At first it was just fine damp on the trees she touched. Then moisture on her face making her eyelids twitch. She hesitated a moment. The path was faint now, for it was only an old and tricky short cut between Elliot’s and Crawhill and the Ballantyne place. Easier now to take the car and drive the long way round. She guessed only Tat came by here, and a forester now and then. Not often either, these woods were falling into decay like David Elliot said, badly needing someone to thin and clear all the rotten clutter.

  Her head went up at a faint snap behind her. A dark bulk through the trees, slow at first then plunging downhill. A deer. David had said the woods were full of them. She moved on until she couldn’t hear her footfall above the growing roar. She saw the white gleam through the trees and hurried on. Moss happed the trunks and branches, it slid off easily against her thumb. She looked at her hand in the gloom and saw her fingers green but steady. Then she turned the corner and looked down on the drop.

  She stood head bowed awhile on the near side of Lauder’s Brig where the gorge was black, streaked with green slime and lit by murky rainbows. Then when she was ready she set foot on the slimy planks, her right hand on the thin wooden rail, and began to cross.

  It was a suspension bridge, sagging towards the centre. On her left was the black rock face where she could almost lean and touch water brown and yellow hurtling down through the gloom. Hard not to be drawn towards that blur, hard not to overcompensate and lean away too much. Hard to walk the middle way. To acknowledge the danger, and its draw, and keep on walking.

  At the lowest point of the crossing she stopped, gripped the rail in both hands, turned and looked down. At her back she felt the chill draught of the fall as she looked until only the smash told her there was motion. Only the odd quaver and variation told her time was happening.

  She looked into the eye of the pit. Cool bottomless black p
ool. In its deep iris she saw the Lauder who had fallen or been pushed from here with his missing bag of silver. Then David Elliot as a frightened boy, and his father waiting on the other side. Then when she was ready she at last let herself think on another fall, the one that ended the life of Jinny Lauder, and left Sir Simon Elliot standing alone at the top of Creagan’s Knowe.

  This place had been waiting all her life. She felt her own fall, saw a husk turn and tumble, the last outstretched hand, the end that was never the end. She stood till she was gone from herself and there was nothing but the endless crash and the stillness.

  Her neck cracked as she finally looked to the far side. The trees there became liquid and swam up the cliff. That’s what came of looking too hard too long.

  She should go back now. Yet her feet followed her hands across the bridge and at last onto the solid ground on the far side. Without looking back she hurried on through the thinning woods towards the big house in the last light of day.

  *

  She hit the first ledge and lay still. Then she twitched, jerked as though hit by electricity. She was on her knees. Then standing again. Her head turned away, he saw the blood bloom on her temple. She sidestepped to the edge of the drop, her arm came up like a salute, and then she fell again …

  For a while now there’s been banging on the door at the bottom of the stair. Young David’s voice calling up. God knows what the loon wants now, but whatever it was Sim can’t face him. Some folks you’ve nothing against but that they make you feel guilty from the moment you meet them. He’d felt like that since he looked and saw this wasn’t the baby girl he’d somehow expected, and he didn’t feel the big thing he’d been holding out for, and the bairn looked straight back at him then started to greit in anger. Some things are so from start to finish, and there’s nothing to be done but thole it.

  The watery thump as Jinny hit the next ledge. This time she lay still. She stirred. She jerked onto her knees, twitching and jerking as the damage came home. Then she was standing swaying like a waltzer lost her partner, and he couldn’t speak, couldn’t think anything other than She’s not deid yet, as her head rotated and seemed to see him. Her mouth opened then she pivoted away and stepped off the edge and dropped from sight. But he heard the sounds drifting back up, each tear and crack and rattle. But no word of speech, not a cry, nothing.