21

It was a good supper. Since everyone in Moila knows everything, and Archie McLaren would certainly have broadcast yesterday’s proceedings, and of course Mr Bagshaw had seen no reason to make a secret of his plans, Mrs McDougall had assumed that he might stay to supper at the big house, and be taken back to his lodgings by boat, so she had helped me out by sending down with Archie that morning a bag of freshly picked – presumably hydroponic – french beans, an apple pie of her own baking, and half a dozen rolls. Neil handed them over to me, and I made that most delicious of standbys, a macaroni cheese, which we ate with bacon and beans, with the apple pie to follow.

Mr Bagshaw, remarking that this was the best food he had tasted in a very long time, ate with great enjoyment. The burning subject of the house sale was not even touched on. Neil, who still looked tired, said little, and the bulk of the conversation was between Mr Bagshaw and Crispin. The former obviously regarded my brother as an expert on birds, and asked more questions about the petrels, and in his turn Crispin asked about the vanishing art of canary breeding. This led naturally to reminiscences of Mr Bagshaw’s childhood in some remote mining village near Durham, and so the meal passed pleasantly enough, and more easily than I had anticipated.

Neil helped me with the clearing and the coffee. As we waited for the kettle to boil he said, softly: ‘I can’t thank you enough. I couldn’t have coped on my own.’

‘That’s all right. Did you gather from what he said that he’s planning to leave tomorrow?’

‘Yes. I did make a sort of offer of a bed, as I thought there would still be a lot to talk about, but he said he wanted to be back in the village to get the ferry in the morning. So your guess is as good as mine. But—’ He stopped.

‘But?’

He lifted his shoulders in a tired shrug. ‘But whatever comes in the near future, I do most passionately want to see this place left in peace. Aunt Emily used to call it her ivory tower.’ He gave a little half-laugh. ‘Something everyone should have. They’re getting rare.’

‘And expensive.’

‘That’s the trouble. Well, we’ll try and pay the price, if he’ll only let us. Here, let me take that tray.’

‘I can manage. Neil, Crispin brought some brandy. It’s in that cupboard, and you know where the glasses are. How about that?’

‘Wonderful.’

I carried the tray through and handed cups of coffee round. ‘Only instant, I’m afraid. How do you like yours, Mr Bagshaw?’

‘Milk and sugar, please. Thanks.’

‘And thanks to Crispin, brandy,’ said Neil, coming across with the glasses.

‘Just what the doctor ordered,’ said Mr Bagshaw, and laughed heartily at his own joke. ‘Thank you. That’s plenty. And now –’ He took a sip, raised his glass to me, and said, across it: ‘I’m not going to make a speech, folks, I wouldn’t know how, but there’s something I’ve got to say. And the first thing is, how much I’ve enjoyed this little trip, and getting to know you folks. I can’t say that yesterday was anything great, and I’m sorry for what happened with Neil and that little rat Ewen Mackay, but it wasn’t any doing of mine, and you’ve all been good enough to treat it as such, and not hold things against me that weren’t all my fault neither – either. So here’s to you, and thank you, all of you, and specially you, Miss Rose, for this.’ A gesture took in the table.

‘You’re welcome,’ I said, smiling. ‘I thought you said you wouldn’t know how to make a speech? That was a pretty nice one.’

‘I haven’t done yet.’ He was looking at Neil now. ‘You all know what I came for, and about my plans for opening the island up. I like the place, and it could be done. Boy, could it be done! Except for two things.’

‘Which are?’ This from Neil.

‘You don’t want to sell,’ said Mr Bagshaw flatly, ‘and don’t think I didn’t get all the things you let drop about the weather and the roof leaking and the light failing and no one coming to do the plumbing when the toilet seized up, excuse me, Miss Rose . . . No, Neil, let me finish. Whatever you’ve been told about this option business, there’s no way I could make you sell if you didn’t want to, and after today, there’s no way I would make you, either. Because of the second thing.’

This time no one spoke. He took a sip of brandy.

‘That island, the seal island, you called it. There’s a romantic little spot if there ever was one, history, nature, good beach, nice harbour, the lot. But it would take a rhinoceros to want to sunbathe on those beaches, and you can’t tell me you didn’t know it. What the hell are they?’

‘Midges,’ said Neil. ‘Argyll variety.’ He set his glass down. The colour had begun to come back into his face. He spoke soberly. ‘Mr Bagshaw – Hart – I owe you an apology. We all do. I feel ashamed about today, and I’ve no right to be thanked for it. It was a – well, it was a conspiracy to make you hate the place. It was also stupid of us to think you wouldn’t see it. And to leave you deliberately – yes, of course it was deliberate – on the island at the time when the midges are worst . . . That was childish, a rotten thing to do. The only excuse is that you . . . you seemed so keen, and I honestly did think I would be held to it. And you took it all so well. You make me feel ashamed, and I beg your pardon. I hope you’ll forgive me.’

‘And me,’ I said. ‘You’ve been sweet, Mr Bagshaw, and I’m sorry.’

‘For what? Giving me my favourite supper? Forget it. You –’ this to Neil – ‘are a very lucky man.’

Neil looked blank. I felt myself go scarlet. Crispin smiled into his brandy glass.

Mr Bagshaw pushed his chair back. ‘And now I’d better be going. Neil, you and I can talk on the way back in the boat. And don’t feel bad about it. As far as I’m concerned, there’s plenty of good fish in the sea still, and I’ll find some place where I won’t be doing Mother Whosit’s chickens out of a roost, and where I can get the john mended the same day. I’ll say goodnight, then, Miss Rose, and thanks again and no hard feelings. Crispin—’

My brother was on his feet. ‘I’ll see you to the boat. Leave the dishes till I get back, Rose.’

He went out with Mr Bagshaw, the latter waiting to help him carefully down the steps to the path. Neil smiled at me. The tired look had dropped away.

‘I ought to make a speech, too. Thank you for today, and I really mean that. It’s been quite a day, and I don’t know where I’d have been without you. Shall I see you again soon?’

‘I’ll be here. The ivory tower is mine for another six days.’

‘For as long as you like, and rent-free at that,’ said my landlord. ‘Crispin’s missed a whole week as it is, so why not stay over and make it up? I’ll fix it for you with the agents. Now I really must go. I’m just hoping that the lawyers or the police won’t drag me straight back to Glasgow, but I’ll be round with the boat just as soon as I can make it. So – see you soon. And in any case—’

‘Yes?’

‘See you next term,’ he said, and went.

The sound of the boat’s engine died. Crispin came back to help with the dishes, and then he went up to bed while I set the place tidy for the night. Before I locked the door I went outside, and down the steps to the edge of the beach. Crispin’s light was out already. My own tiredness had gone, but I welcomed the silence and the solitude.

It closed me round, the blessed silence, made up of all the peaceful sounds of night; the whisper of sea on the shingle, the breeze in the bracken, the rustle of some creature in the grass, a splash from the tide’s edge, and a movement among the rise and fall of the sea-tangle, dark in the dark.

‘Good night,’ I whispered, and went indoors to bed.

I was just falling asleep when, from somewhere just outside the bay, I heard a boat’s engine mutter softly past.

‘See you next term,’ I said, and smiled into my pillow.

I believe I was still smiling when I fell asleep.