5

He set the kettle down with a rap on the draining-board. He seemed even more taken aback than I was, and this heartened me. I said, with a reasonable show of calmness: ‘You’re welcome, of course, to take shelter from the storm, but do you usually walk into someone else’s house without knocking? Or did you knock, and I didn’t hear you? I thought the door was locked, anyway.’

‘Your house?’ He asked it without any apparent sense of its being a stupid question.

‘Well, yes. Temporarily, anyway. I’ve rented it for a fortnight. Oh, I see. You know the owners? And you thought you could just walk in—’

‘As a matter of fact, I thought it was my own house. I was brought up here. See?’ He put a hand in a pocket and brought out a key, the duplicate of the one I had been given, which fitted both front and back doors. ‘I’d no idea the place had changed hands. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry, too.’ An awkward silence. He stood by the sink, dripping quietly onto the scullery matting. He showed no sign of offering to go, and, hearing the wind outside hurling fistfuls of rain about, I could hardly blame him. I cleared my throat. ‘Well, this is a bit awkward, isn’t it? The people who lived here moved away a couple of years ago, so I was told. I don’t know where they went, but Mrs McDougall at the post office could probably tell you, if you wanted to get in touch again. I think she said the name was Mackay.’

‘That is right.’ Now in his voice I could hear, through the flattening cosmopolitan overlay, the unmistakable lilt of the islands. ‘My father used to do the garden at Taigh na Tuir. My foster-father, that is.’

‘You mean your parents lived here? Then this was your home?’

‘That is right,’ he said again.

‘Well . . .’ I stopped, at a loss for words. He smiled then for the first time, and the smile lightened his face to a sudden, vivid charm.

‘A bit of a facer, isn’t it? For me, too.’

‘You mean you really didn’t know they’d left? You just let yourself into your own home and thought they’d be upstairs asleep?’

‘Just that.’

‘But – but that’s awful. You . . .’ I stopped again. There was really nothing left to say. I finished, feebly: ‘You’re taking it very calmly. What will you do?’

‘What can I do, but wait till morning?’ The smile was still there, but behind it now was a hint of trouble, and more than a hint of tiredness. ‘It wasn’t quite such a shock as you might think. It certainly shook me when you came downstairs, but then I just thought my people might be away, and have let the cottage. Then I thought . . . well, as it happens, I did know that the old lady – Mrs Hamilton – had died earlier this year, and of course that could have meant that Dad’s job had packed up and they’d had to move. But then, when you said they’d been gone for a couple of years . . .’ He paused and took his breath in. No smile now. He frowned down for a few moments at the damp patch on the matting at his feet, then he shook his head, as if ridding himself of some unwelcome thought, and looked up at me again. ‘In fact, that’s still what may have happened, isn’t it? If she hadn’t been well, perhaps, for some time, and had lost interest in the garden, and wanted to get the cottage done over for sale or letting, then she might have told them to go?’

He finished on a note of enquiry, but I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve only just got here, and I really haven’t heard anything more than I told you. But how does it happen that you didn’t know they were leaving? All that time ago – did they never write?’

‘I’ve been abroad. Moving around, and one loses touch, I’m afraid. I’ve only just got back to the UK.’ He looked around him. ‘I did notice the changes, of course, but I just thought the old lady had had the house done over for them – the parents. But she must have done it after they left; she’d have to, if she wanted to let the place. It wasn’t much before, you can see.’ A glance at the corner where the copper stood, then at the doorway behind me, where the light fell on the gleaming worktops and new cupboards. He lifted his shoulders and let them fall in a dismissive shrug. ‘Ah, well, I can see now, they’ve made a pretty good job of it. I didn’t really stop to look earlier – I was just so glad to get out of the weather.’

‘I can imagine. You said you knew that Mrs Hamilton had died?’

‘As it happens, yes. I hired my boat on Faarsay – that’s a little island south of Mull – and they’d heard about Mrs Hamilton, but they didn’t know my folks, so no one told me our house was let.’

‘I – yes, I see. Well, I’m sorry you had to find out this way.’

A pause. There seemed to be nothing else to say. The water dripped steadily from his anorak to make a puddle on the floor. He looked pale and, I thought, tired and rather lost. I said crisply: ‘Give me the kettle. You look as if you could do with a hot drink, and as a matter of fact, so could I.’ I carried the kettle into the other room, plugged it in and switched on. ‘What’ll you have, coffee? Tea? Cocoa? I’m not stocked up with strong drink yet, I’m afraid. Why don’t you take that wet anorak off and get the fire going again while I make the drinks?’

He did as I suggested, dropping the wet clothes into a corner by the back door. ‘Well, God bless this house. It’s very good of you to take it like this. I’m sorry if I gave you a fright. The coal’s still kept just outside the back door?’

‘Yes, but I brought some in earlier; it’s in that bucket there, and there’s peat there, too, and it’s dry. I suppose you’re used to peat fires? You can show me how. Are you sure cocoa will do?’

‘If there’s coffee, I’d rather have that, please. Yes, instant would be fine. Thanks.’ He came in from the scullery with the coal bucket in one hand and in the other a fat metal cylinder. ‘I’ll certainly show you, but didn’t you know about this?’

‘Don’t tell me it’s a gas poker? How wonderful! Where was it?’

‘At the back of the cupboard. We hardly ever used it, but it’s a great standby, and very quick.’ He dumped the cylinder down by the sitting-room hearth and knelt to stack peat and coal over the cold core of the fire. The kettle boiled and I made the drinks and followed him through to set the mugs down on the low table near the fireplace.

‘Do you take sugar? Will that really burn?’

‘Yes, please. Yes, indeed, given time, it will burn well. This always was a good fire. They have changed the fireplace, but the chimney will be the same, and it burns hot. You will see.’

‘Incidentally, were you hoping to get a meal here? Because I’m afraid that all I’ve got at the moment—’

‘No, no, that’s OK. The drink will do fine. I’ve got this to help it, anyway.’ He took the mug I handed him, then produced a flask from his pocket, and tipped a generous measure into his mug. He held the flask out to me, but I shook my head. The fire caught the peat and spread into a warming glow. Feeling as if I was still asleep and having a very curious dream, I settled myself on the other side of the hearth from the stranger and took a sip of cocoa. It is a simple drink, but wonderfully heartening.

‘My name’s Rose Fenemore,’ I said, ‘and I’m from Cambridge.’

‘Mine’s Ewen Mackay, from Moila, but it’s a long, long time since I was here. You’re taking this very well, Rose Fenemore. Some women would have come downstairs with the poker at the ready.’

‘I might have done, only I’m expecting my brother to join me, I don’t quite know when. I was too sleepy to wonder how he’d managed, at this time of night.’ I glanced at the window. ‘Did you really bring a boat across tonight in that?’

‘Why not? Rounding the Horn is worse.’ He laughed. ‘As a matter of fact, the really nasty bit was when I was walking across here, coming over the head of the cliff there with the wind trying to blow me out to sea again.’

‘Over the cliff? The headland? Then you didn’t put into the bay here?’

‘No. With the wind and the tide this way it’s too tricky to bring a boat in here. There’s a little cove about halfway between here and the big house – the Hamilton house. It’s a safe mooring in any weather, and the nearest to home.’

The last word fell queerly in the little room, with the fire burning cosily and the insistent sounds of the storm at the window. I sipped cocoa, and wondered how and when I would be able to turn him out into the night again. Or even if. The windows, black as pitch, were streaming with water, and from time to time doors and windows rattled as if the cottage were under attack. I would not have put a stray dog out into such a night.

And the man, apparently, still regarded the place as ‘home’. Well, Rose Fenemore, now might be the time to broaden your outlook a little. I could name at least three of my friends who would have been prompt to offer this undeniably attractive young man a doss-down on the sofa, and one of them who would have already been thinking of taking him upstairs for the night . . .

He was saying something about the Hamilton house, a question.

‘I’m sorry?’ I said.

‘I asked if you had been over there yet?’

‘No.’

‘You should go. It’s quite a good path over the cliff there, and the island with the broch is worth a visit. There’s a nice bay there, too, very sheltered. You can take a boat in there most times, except at low water, but it can be awkward then, and in this weather . . . Anyway, I tucked my boat in snugly at Halfway House – the cove – and walked over to Taigh na Tuir. That’s what they call the Hamilton place.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘I just wanted to see it again.’ He reached forward to turn off the gas poker and add a couple of peats to the fire. ‘Even though I knew there was no one there. And even if they hadn’t told me, I would have known. She never slept well, and she used to read half the night. It seemed queer to me to see the windows all dark and the curtains still not drawn . . . I don’t think I believed it till then, that she was gone, I mean. You might say that Taigh na Tuir was as much home to me as this was. More. I was over there most days when I was a boy.’

‘Mrs McDougall – no, I think it was Archie McLaren – told me that your father looked after the garden there.’

‘My foster-father.’ That emphasis again. ‘I was adopted. Did they not tell you that? It was never a secret. Yes, he worked at the House, and so did my mother. But they – the Colonel and Mrs Hamilton – they had no family, only a brother who lived abroad all the time, and, well, they treated me like a son, or grandson, rather. It was the Colonel himself who taught me how to shoot, and I always went with him for the fishing. The way they were with me, I sometimes wondered—’

He broke off. A quick flash of a glance from those blue eyes, then he turned away.

‘You wondered?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all . . .’ He stirred the peats, the Gaelic suddenly strong in his voice. ‘But it’s a strange feeling to be robbed of both homes all in the same wild night.’

Celtic twilight, I thought. Is he dramatising all this a bit, for sympathy and a bed for the night, or is this the normal way of the Gael? The chill little touch of criticism roused me. Stray dog or no stray dog, I wanted him to go. I sat up in my chair.

‘I’m sorry. I really am. But –’

He smiled at me suddenly, the same flash of charm. ‘And that was not a hint for you to offer me a bed for the night, Miss Rose Fenemore. You’ve been very kind, and I’m good and dry now, and I’ve slept on the boat many’s the time before, and in worse nights than this. The wind’s dropping a bit, anyhow, and she’ll be all safe and snug in Halfway House. I’ll maybe get round to the harbour in the morning, and have a talk with Mrs McDougall. Here, let me wash the mugs up for you first.’

‘No, really, they’re nothing. Give me yours.’

As I got up to take it from him, there was a sharp rapping at the front door. In the time it took me to turn my head, Ewen Mackay came upright, and a hand moved – incredibly – towards a pocket. It was a movement I had seen a hundred times on television, but never before in real life. For real life, visit Moila, the island of the ivory tower.

His hand dropped. I said, feebly: ‘Would you answer the door, please? And if it’s my brother, don’t shoot him.’

He didn’t smile. He gave me a sideways look that was curiously disconcerting, and went to the door.

It opened on a rush of air. Outside stood a young man in oilskins, the hood blowing back from a soaking tangle of brown hair blackened by the rain, and one hand gripping a duffel bag.

Ewen Mackay stood back for him to enter. ‘Do come in. The kettle’s just on the boil. Mr Fenemore, I presume?’

The newcomer came in on a gust of the storm. He stood dripping on the rug while Ewen Mackay shut the door behind him. ‘What?’ he asked. He blinked at the light as if it hurt him. His eyes were bloodshot, presumably with the wind, and he looked dazed.

‘Your brother made it after all,’ said Ewen Mackay to me, but I shook my head.

‘I’ve never seen him before in my life,’ I said.