I wished that did not make me feel so dirty every time I thought about it. The reality of having been examined was somehow much nastier, in my head, than the assault that didn’t happen and which I couldn’t really imagine. Almost as if people were trying to blame me for what wasn’t done. As if my body were rude and lewd just because it was a girl’s body.
At any rate the uncomfortable feeling with Dunbar and Munro was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but it had to do with being very attracted to one of them and having to hide it while we pawed over the dead man’s clothes like the witches in Macbeth.
‘I should go,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell my mother what you’ve found.’
‘Tell her I’ll meet her in my office whenever it’s convenient,’ Frank Dunbar agreed.
And I fled up the ruined lawn and into the savaged house.
11
HOW A LAD GIVES A KISS WHEN HE MEANS IT
Mémère insisted that we make the trip to her seamstress in Perth together. It was astonishing, and a lesson in dignity, how my grandmother managed to soldier on as though nothing were out of the ordinary in a house full of builders and the poisoned atmosphere of Hugh Housman’s ‘suicide’. I came away from the excursion to the dressmaker’s feeling that every critical thing Ellen McEwen had said about me was true. Even the blue silk I’d wanted for my party frock was too expensive and I was sorry now I’d asked for it.
Mémère and I were both fingering it in rapt admiration when she muttered wistfully to herself, ‘I could if I had to’ – and I knew then that she could not afford it.
Mummy took me aside very delicately and whispered in my ear, ‘Let her choose something she can pay for.’
And I felt rotten.
Mémère picked out a leaf-green chiffon with a gold sheen to it when it caught the light. It really was beautiful, but I was afraid it would make me look like a fairy – I could just imagine Jamie and Sandy teasing, ‘Happy birthday, Tinker Bell!’
And then, my goodness, I’d never thought about that name being insulting. But it was. She is quite a common fairy … She is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots and kettles. How much I did take everything for granted, even the storybooks I had thought were so harmless.
Euan could have walked home the next evening, but I liked the excuse to take the car out, and I gave him a ride anyway. Euan laughed at me as I started to guide the Magnette up the drive.
‘What?’ I demanded.
‘I like the way you start the car.’
‘How’s that?’
‘You always look as if you think it’s going to fight you. Your eyes go wee and narrow and you hunch your shoulders and lean in as if you’re going to give it what for.’
‘I do not hunch,’ I told him with dignity. ‘I have to sit right up on the edge of the seat so I can see out.’
I became terribly self-conscious then. Because when I was starting the car, I was only thinking about the car. I was not thinking about my hair or ghosts or some stupid dead man’s trousers. And that was when Euan was watching. What could I possibly look like when I was just being me?
‘I’d no’ want you to look at me like that,’ Euan said.
‘I would never,’ I vowed. ‘I say, have the Perthshire and Kinross-shire Constabulary come out to visit you at Inchfort since they made their last find? Because Mother rang them and told them to go door to door through Brig O’Fearn asking folk if they saw you on the morning Dr Housman disappeared. And almost everybody did.’
‘Aye! That Inspector Milne, the wee man with the wee beard? He talked to everyone digging on the pipeline this noontime, him and the Water Bailiff.’
‘I hope he didn’t make another fuss over you in particular.’
‘Aye, nae bother. And we’re all away the morrow so it’s finished. There’s new tatties we help with every year out Comrie way and it’s time we were out of this mire for a bit. When the inquiry’s over we’ll maybe come back.’
My heart fell. I hadn’t expected them to leave the second they found they were cleared of suspicion.
I could understand getting itchy staying in one place. But I didn’t really understand the McEwens.
‘They found Dr Housman’s trousers yesterday,’ I told Euan. ‘Perhaps there won’t be an inquiry.’
‘Perhaps pigs might fly,’ he said with resignation. Then he offered suddenly: ‘Come in about and have a sup of tea with us. If we don’t see you for another fortnight Ellen will miss you.’
And I could not resist even if there’d been reason to. I thought that the uncertainty of Ellen in my life must be a bit what it was like for Mémère in the months and weeks leading to Grandad’s death. Eventually, you know, you are going to have to go without. But until then …
When we got to Inchfort, Euan hopped out over the side of the car (like my brothers) and opened the gate so I could pull safely into the field next to the wagons and horses and, that evening, also the van belonging to the Camerons, the McEwens’ motorised cousins who were going to help whisk them all away to the headwaters of the River Fearn or wherever it was they were going.
It really was only a sup of tea to start with. Ellen was away out with her mother doing one last round of the houses in Brig O’Fearn village selling their willow baskets and heather pot scrubbers and horn spoons, so I waited. Old Auntie Bessie started frying up a mess of skirly (oatmeal and onions together), which honestly smelled so good I started pestering her to show me how to make it, thinking we could easily do it on the portable gas ring in the morning room. The kiddies were shy with me, and Euan slipped away with them to the bottom of the field to organise a game of rounders which I didn’t quite dare join in.
When Ellen and Jean McEwen got back they were carrying a great sack of new potatoes between them; Ellen dumped them off and hooked my arm through hers to drag me away up the lane to Boatman’s Well, taking with us a few big tin cans for water. Pinkie came prancing at our heels – she would desert Euan in favour of me any day of the week.
‘You’re away tomorrow,’ I accused Ellen. ‘And I thought things would be all right here for you now.’
‘Och, at it again!’ she warned. ‘Fixing and managing everything. The world’s supposed to stop just where you want it, aye?’
‘No, of course not,’ I answered in irritation. ‘I meant I’d miss you. I’m not being selfish –’
She gave her little snort of scorn.
‘Not only being selfish, at any rate! I’m trying to say something nice to you.’
We reached the well, but Ellen kept on walking.
‘Where are you going?’
‘The telephone by the Bridge Farm post office. Call your mammy and tell her you’re stopping for tea with us. I’ve pennies for the ’phone – we sold all those baskets.’
We dropped the empty water cans outside, with Pinkie standing guard over them, and jammed ourselves into the old white concrete ’phone box so that Ellen could listen in on what I said and be in charge of making the call. Of all the people who could have picked up, I got Frank Dunbar on the other end, which flustered me. Ellen had her ear pressed against the other side of the receiver, ready to eavesdrop.