She has a quiet night at Auchenblae. She leaves the hall light on, and her bedroom window open and the dawn chorus wakes her. The mice seem to have calmed down, the fridge makes no noise at all. Maybe she was just too exhausted to hear anything, as she fell fast asleep, surrounded by her own and her mother’s clothes. In the morning, a telephone engineer comes over from the mainland to set up her broadband and the landline. He gets lost on the way and has to telephone her to ask where the turning for the house is.
‘God, you’re in the back of beyond here, aren’t you?’ he says when he finally turns in at the gate. It would be costing her a fortune, except that he’s been called to do some work on a couple of farms at the south of the island as well. Cal has warned her about the additional expenses of living on an island, even one with such good ferry connections as Garve; how delivery expenses can rocket, how some companies won’t even deliver to anywhere north of the central belt of Scotland, and have a very restricted notion of where that central belt ends.
‘Hell’s bells,’ the engineer says, looking at the box where the phone line from the road comes into the house. She hasn’t noticed before but it could be made of Bakelite. ‘Haven’t seen one of these since 1970. It’s a good job they sent me. Some of the younger engineers wouldn’t know what they were looking at. I’ll need to replace it. I’m surprised the phones worked at all.’
‘The line’s been disconnected, so I wouldn’t know.’
She makes him tea and biscuits to speed up the work, leaves him to it and goes upstairs to sort out her bedroom, laying claim to it, making it her own. But she can’t resist putting the Laura Ashley and the Marimekko dresses back in the wardrobe.
*
Later that afternoon, she’s down on the beach, contemplating the sea and wondering how many relics of wrecked ships might be lurking down there under the sand. She still can’t quite get used to the idea that the beach is hers, and in her heart of hearts she doesn’t approve of anyone owning a beach. Her father would be outraged. Not that she could fence it off or prevent people from walking along it or would even want to. She hears joyful barking and looks up towards the house to see Hector careering down the path in her direction, leaping up and down through the vegetation. He thunders over the sand, puts both front paws on her knee and grins at her, panting, his tongue lolling.
‘Where did you spring from?’ she asks him, scratching him behind the ears. He sits down, thumps his tail on the sand, stands up again, grabs a piece of seaweed and shakes it vigorously.
‘Hector!’ His master is following at a more leisurely pace, picking his way down the track. He’s grinning too, but not quite so ingratiatingly. ‘He clearly loves you!’ he says, nodding at the dog.
‘I suspect he’s anybody’s, really.’
‘Yeah. That’s true. How was your trip?’
‘Fine. The fair was OK.’
‘Busy?’
‘So so. I decided to come back here, begin to sort things out, make up my mind about the house.’
‘You saw my mum. You went into the shop.’
‘Did she tell you?’
‘I phone her quite a bit. Just to make sure she’s OK.’
Afterwards she wonders about this rather strange admission, asking herself why Fiona wouldn’t be OK. She seems to be the kind of person who can look after herself. Also, she remembers the expression on his face when he said it. He’s smiling, as ever, but just for a moment, his eyes are curiously at odds with the rest of him. She has a brief, incredible impression that he’s completely exhausted, but hiding it well. Or perhaps she’s reading too much into it altogether.
He throws a piece of driftwood for Hector. ‘She said she was swearing like the proverbial trooper.’
‘She was. Over a broken Wemyss pig.’
‘She was mortified but she says you’re nice. She thinks you look like your mother. As she remembers her.’
‘I was only in there for five minutes. To be honest, if your mum hadn’t come in, I’d probably have left sooner.’
‘Ah.’ He pulls a face. ‘Annabel. She’s OK when you get to know her.’
‘She isn’t exactly welcoming to the customers. Well, customers like me.’
‘No. We have Mum for that. But you should see her get to work on the guys with money to burn.’
‘That’s a bit unscrupulous. And inadvisable. I might have been rich beyond the dreams of avarice.’
‘Well, you’re certainly worth a bob or two!’ He laughs.
‘Only if I sell up. But what happened to the customer always being right?’
‘Annabel thinks that doesn’t apply to her.’ He looks sheepish.
‘You’re right there. I didn’t see your father, though.’
‘No. You wouldn’t. He hardly ever comes into the shop.’ He’s silent for a moment, scratching behind Hector’s ear. ‘Is there something wrong, Daisy? Have I done something?’
‘I don’t know. Have you?’
He sighs. ‘You’ve been talking to your solicitor, haven’t you?’
‘It’s fairly usual.’
‘I don’t know why I didn’t let on from the beginning. But it seemed such a cheek. To say I’d been in the house before you. Seen some of the things. I mean, it isn’t something I do very often. Probate valuations. In fact, I don’t really do them at all. It’s just that I was available.’
‘I’d rather have found it out from you than from Mr McDowall.’
‘Well, it felt embarrassing. And then because I didn’t say it right out, it got really difficult to admit it. The moment never came.’
She can understand this. It’s like when you forget somebody’s name and then the moment passes and you can never actually ask them.
‘You should have just told me. God, Cal, I slept on your sofa and you still didn’t say.’
‘I didn’t think it was a big deal. Well, I kind of hoped it wouldn’t matter.’
‘It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if you weren’t actually a...’
‘A dealer. I know. And so are you. But I’m not that sort of dealer, Daisy. I’m not like that.’
‘You’re still at the top end of the market and I’m closer to the boot sale bottom.’
‘Not sure about that. I don’t think the distinctions are so marked.’
‘Oh I do. Believe me, when I go into shops like yours, I know my place.’
She’s inclined to believe him, but she’s been caught out like this before, giving men the benefit of the doubt. We want to trust people if we like them. Even more so if we’re physically attracted to them.
He sits down on the rock beside her. She’s acutely aware of him, warm and full of potential energy. He smells of soap and coconut shampoo.
‘Plenty of people are that sort, though,’ she says. ‘I’ve met them. They’ll go into some old lady’s house to give her a valuation on her furniture, and they’ll find something precious and slip it into the drawer of some piece of old pine, and make a cheeky offer for it. I’ve heard them talking about it in the saleroom.’
‘Yeah. Me too,’ he says, ruefully.
‘And the younger they are and the more charming, the worse it gets. They have this sense of entitlement. It’s strange how when you’ve got something to sell it’s always the wrong time, but when you’re buying, everything is suddenly very popular and hard to get.’
He can’t help smiling at this. ‘Well, I’ve been guilty of that one myself.’
‘Haven’t we all? So did you actually hide the picture of Lilias? Given how valuable it is?’
He looks embarrassed. ‘I cannot tell a lie. I did.’
She has picked up a piece of bladderwrack and is popping the dry pods between her fingers, compulsively, as satisfying as popping bubble wrap.
‘Why, Cal? I mean, what were you planning to do? Get to know me and then make me some dodgy offer for it?’
He shakes his head vehemently. ‘Oh, sweetheart, I told you. I’m not that sort of person. I pointed it out to you! I told you it was potentially valuable.’
After you saw me, says the subversive voice in her head. After you realised I was no fool. No pushover. She wishes he would stop calling her sweetheart, even though she can see that it’s just a habit with him.
‘I’ve hung it up in the big room.’
‘Have you?’
‘I wanted to see her. Lilias. She brightens up the whole room.’
‘See, when McDowall asked me to do the valuation, I’ll admit I was chuffed. I’d wanted a look inside for years.’
‘But you undervalued it all a bit, didn’t you?’
‘Are you sorry about that? Did you want to pay even more to the Revenue? I made an informed assessment, Daisy, and I stand by it. Hell, it would take months to go through it all. Will take months. They didn’t question it. I’d have been happy for them to go in and look at it and prove me wrong. There’s a hell of a lot of junk in there, you know there is.’
‘Don’t I just!’
‘Those boxes and chests of bric a brac, linens and things, they may well have a market value once you’ve sorted them out and cleaned them and worked on them. But looked at cold, just like that… their value is minimal. There are a few good pieces of furniture, old oak and so on, and I listed those individually. The odd piece of good porcelain. Some interesting books that you probably haven’t seen yet. They’re stowed away in one of the cupboards. I came across Old and New Testaments from the late 1700s. Gilt herringbone bindings. They’ll be worth a bob or two, although the really interesting thing is the McNeill family names and birthdates in the back. I had a wee glance at them, that’s all. You’ll want to take a good look at those.’
‘I will. I want to take a good look at all of it.’
‘I know. And here’s hoping we,’ he hesitated, ‘you, make a few more significant finds. The embroidered cabinet, what do they call it here? The curiosity cabinet. That was the real prize, but that’s long gone.’
‘Not from the island.’
‘No. But it’s gone from this house with the McNeills, and Donal will never sell it.’
‘And the portrait? You said that’s potentially valuable.’
‘Maybe aye, maybe no. I only know it’s beautiful and it’s very old and for some reason it seemed to be nobody’s business but yours. And mine for a while. It has a continental look to it. I’d like to get my mum to have a look at it. But I was never going to cheat you out of anything and I’m only sorry you got that impression. I should have told you right from the start that I’d done the valuation of the contents. My bad.’
He stands up, holds out his hand to her. She takes it, partly as the peace offering it’s intended to be, and partly so that he can haul her to her feet.
‘Tell you what,’ he says. ‘Do you want to walk along and have a look at the broch? The tide’s pretty low and it makes it easier to get there. Look, Hector’s up for it.’
‘Hector’s up for anything. Why not? It isn’t far, is it?’
‘No. It’s on your land. Over there. You can just see the mound. There isn’t much of the structure left, but it must have been quite impressive at one time.’
‘As if I don’t have enough heaps of old stones already!’
‘An embarrassment of ancient monuments.’
*
They walk along the beach, over clean white sand, as far as the narrow promontory and then there’s a scramble through shallow dunes, bent grasses, the spikes of flag irises just starting to open, and beyond that a stretch of short turf with blue self-heal and yellow trefoil.
She follows him and pauses, panting. ‘I’m not as fit as I should be.’
‘Too much city living. But a few weeks here will remedy that.’
Hector has been racing ahead – perhaps he has scented a rabbit – but now his sandy head peers over a hillock, encouragingly.
‘It’s well named, this place, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘What?’
‘Flowerfield. Auchenblae.’
‘Of course. Yes. Field of Flowers. The island is full of flowers but there are more here than anywhere.’
She can see the broch, Dun Faire, more closely now. It’s a circular structure, built of massive grey stones, with smaller stones scattered and tumbled around it. It stands on a low, rocky knoll, at the tip of this thin arm of land, stretching protectively out to sea. Following the outer ditch, they come upon a single doorway on the north side, with an impressive lintel over the top. This seems to be in a reasonably good state of repair. But beyond the doorway, there is little of the wall left; just enough to show its circular shape.
‘Yet another heap of old stones for you,’ Cal says, happily. ‘Not the biggest broch in the world, but that seems to have been what it was.’
He heads for the door, ducks down and disappears inside. She follows more slowly, with Hector weaving anxiously around her, his herding instincts kicking in. She hesitates on the threshold. It’s quiet inside and she thinks ‘what if?’ What if he has disappeared? Swallowed by the past. What if she is about to be swallowed by the past as well? Even as she tells herself not to be so daft, the thought occurs to her that she is about to be swallowed by the past anyway, if she’s not careful. Isn’t that what this house and all the land around her, all the heaps of stones, each with its own history, will do to her if she stays here? Absorb her into itself as it absorbed Viola, as her mother feared that she too might lose herself in the endless demands of the house and the land around it. And so, when the opportunity arose, Jessica escaped.
The dog has gone inside in search of Cal. She follows them, dismissing the fantasy. There is a sense of darkness beyond the door, even though the walls are only a little higher than the lintel, but as she passes through, she can understand why. There’s a double layer of stones, with a passageway running between the two walls. Peering along to her left, she can just make out the remains of a ruined stair that must once have given access to the upper floors and galleries. She dredges up her knowledge of Scottish history and prehistory. These were Iron Age buildings, two thousand years old, although the experts couldn’t seem to agree on whether they were defensive or simply grand houses for wealthy chieftains and their extended families. Perhaps both. It would make sense, especially with the siting of this one, as so many others, with an extensive view of the sea. You would always know if someone was coming.
She passes into the interior, already filling up with new bracken and heather, although there are flat flagstones here and there amid mysterious lumps and bumps. Perhaps stones have fallen down from the upper galleries at some point in its long history. Because of the thickness of the walls, the inner room seems quite small.
There is no sign of Cal or Hector, but then Cal whistles to her and she turns around to see that he’s standing six feet above her, having scrambled up to the flat top of the wall and gallery floor, with Hector beside him. He holds out his hand to her. The inner wall has tumbled down here and formed a series of heathery ledges, uneven steps, and it’s an easy climb. He hauls her up beside him. They sit together in companionable silence for a while, dangling their legs over the interior edge, while Hector rushes easily down the same steps, to sniff among the bracken and heather below. Cal pulls a bottle of water out of his pocket and passes it to her.
‘Thirsty work,’ he says.
‘I wonder what Hector’s after.’
‘Wee beasties of all sorts. Maybe even foxes. He never finds them. Or at least whenever he rouses something, he’ll chase it, but when he’s on the verge of catching it, he’ll stop and look vacant. Like, “What do I do now?” I’ve seen it happen. No kind of killer instinct at all. Bit like me, really.’
‘Aye right,’ she says, using the sceptical Scottish double positive. She drinks, hands him back the bottle and he slips it into his jacket pocket.
She closes her eyes for a moment or two and the silence that is really no silence at all presses in on her. She can hear a skylark, its song impossibly high and distant, tumbling through the blue above them. She can hear the trickle of the nearby burn – did they deliberately build near a source of fresh water, those ancient people? – and further off the soft incoming swish of waves on the beach. She can hear the rustle of the dog, ferreting about among last year’s heather stalks. And she can hear Cal’s breathing, feel the warmth of his body next to hers. She opens her eyes, turns and finds that he is looking at her as though trying to puzzle something out. His own feelings, maybe. Or hers. And then he’s kissing her. Or perhaps she kisses him first. Hard to tell. His lips are firm and dry. It’s been a while since anyone kissed her but her instant response to him is almost frightening in its intensity. It takes her by surprise. He tastes of water and desire and he smells of peppermint and heather. They topple over onto the flat top of the wall. There’s a familiarity about him. The ground is dry up here and the stones are cushioned with turf. Years of sand have formed a kind of mulch in which small sea-friendly plants have grown and spread, carpeting the stones. This would once have been a first-floor gallery with others above it when the tower rose to its full height. His face hovers above hers, questioning, intent, and they kiss again, awkwardly, as he tries to cushion her head against the stone.
His tongue is in her mouth. Her right hand is on the back of his neck where the hair is soft and fine, pulling him closer, but her left hand is on the stone, her fingers digging into turf, as though to anchor herself there, to ground herself in the real world. It’s so fast, so sudden, this overwhelming desire that can so easily be mistaken for love.
But may not be.
‘Cal!’ she says, breathlessly.
At the same moment, Hector bounces up to them, and licks their faces.
‘Oh, fuck off, Hector!’ says Cal.
But they sit up, the moment broken, however temporarily.
Cal gets up, hauls her to her feet with Hector frolicking around them. ‘Bloody dog,’ he says.
‘We should go back, anyway,’ she says. There is no particular reason why they should go back, but she can sense herself dragging her feet to slow things down. He’s a comparative stranger. However well recommended he comes on the island, she doesn’t know very much about him, and doesn’t fully trust him. They scramble down from the promontory and head back to the beach below the house.
Hector has rushed ahead of them onto the beach. He tugs at a piece of seaweed, shakes it, kills it satisfactorily, tearing it apart. They follow more slowly, their bodies inclining inexorably together. She wants to take his hand again, but wonders if she should. The dog has abandoned his seaweed and is now digging furiously in the sand beside a little group of rocks, scrabbling with his front paws, spraying damp sand out behind him. He seems to have made quite a big hole. They walk over to see what he has found.
‘What are you like, Hector?’ says Cal, cheerfully. Then he halts, peers down, grabs the dog by his collar and pulls him, protesting slightly, away.
‘What has he found?’ Daisy asks, coming up behind them. ‘Is it something dead? They do seem to like dead seagulls.’
‘No. I don’t know. It looks like... Hang on a minute.’
Cal squats down in the damp sand, and reaches into the hole, the little pit that the dog has created, scraping away some of the sand just beneath the shelving rock, seawater already seeping in.
He tugs at something and out it comes. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Look what he’s found. There, between the stones.’ He’s looking down at Hector in astonishment. The dog is sitting panting on the sand, oblivious and happy.
Cal brushes the sand away from the object and holds it out to her on the palm of his hand. There’s the unmistakable gleam of pure gold.