THE RESIDENTS OF COMELY BANK were bound in many ways. In addition to the daily rituals—buying a newspaper or a coffee, taking the same bus—that made them familiar with each other, they shared a history that sometimes went back as far as childhood. The school at the end of the street had been educating the boys and girls of Comely Bank since 1885. The original building was two storeys of dark grey stone with high, diagonally muntined windows and a steeply sloping state roof topped with a weathervane. This solid, imposing building remained the school’s heart even when other structures were added. It was here that the children learnt history, maths, and English. It was where they learnt about our galaxy and its planets, how space is busy with stars and comets that burn a trail through the dark.
The old building contained a large, wooden-floored hall where morning assembly was held. This consisted of prayers, school announcements, and the singing of a Christian song. When Mrs. Maclean first started teaching at the school in 1965, there were still few enough pupils for the headmaster to call out their names at assembly to check if they were present. As a child, this made me anxious; if someone did not answer I worried that something terrible might have happened. Sometimes I dreamed that the whole class list was read out and no one answered.
Though my reaction was unusual, I doubt anyone enjoyed morning assembly. This is how one former pupil described it in his memoirs.
We waited in silence, without expectation, for the stalk of the headmistress, Mrs. Maclean, across the stage. In this movement, as in all others—the jerk of her head, the point of her nose—she resembled a raven, though not of the kind described by Poe. There was nothing foreboding or ominous about her, no suggestion she was anything but a grey woman in her grey fifties. Her faith was of a similar colour. She sang the hymns and read the prayers with little trace of fervour. I have no doubt that Mrs. Maclean believed in God. But did He believe in her? She was of so little substance, so scarcely present, that even He, who had created her, might have doubted her existence.
Despite the author’s facetious tone, Mrs. Maclean was one of the pillars of Comely Bank. Not only had she taught at its school for forty-five years (both Alasdair and Mortimer were among her pupils), she was also its longest resident. She had been born in 1936 in a terraced house with a crooked chimney and a privet hedge. Her father worked in a steel factory; her mother was a seamstress. She had an older sister named Susan, and a baby brother named Albert who was killed by a runaway horse. Though this was a terrible tragedy, the 1930s and ’40s were otherwise an excellent time to be a child in Scotland. Her father had regular work, so there were shiny bicycles to ride, dollhouses and tea sets to play with, fish and chips on a Friday. As for what happened in those distant countries coloured red in the atlas, whose children did not have dollhouses or train sets, but other, less pleasant products of Empire, this was not a subject that darkened young minds.
After her parents died in the early 1960s, she did not even consider selling the house. It was the only home she’d known, the only one she could imagine. The longest she ever spent away from Comely Bank was a week in 1974, when she took a bus that crawled from town to town till it reached the west coast of Scotland. There she took a boat, and since the weather was fine, she sat out on deck. The water was like glass through which she could look down, down, through the seaweed, to the depths below.
As she neared the Isle of Mull, she must have thought of her sister. They had quarrelled five years previously and had not spoken since. Though their actual words have not been preserved, their substance can be guessed. In a letter Mrs. Maclean accuses her sister of “wanton behaviour” with a man “who was as good as married.” Susan’s answering accusation, which seems to have particularly upset Mrs. Maclean (she refers to it as “inexcusable”), was that she was jealous.
The identity of the “as good as married” man (and what took place between him and Susan) must remain unknown. Neither Susan nor Mrs. Maclean ever used his name. As for why Susan put stones in her pockets then stepped off a cliff, we can only surmise that something went awry. The man must have chosen to stay with the person he was almost married to. What is beyond doubt is how much her sister’s death hurt Mrs. Maclean. If Susan had died in an accident, it would have been painful, the shock compounded by the knowledge that there could be no reconciliation. That Susan had committed suicide was worse, not just for the usual reasons—the feeling of guilt, the sense that one has failed to prevent it—but because Mrs. Maclean was a devout Catholic. She believed, as people used to, that all life was sacred. However much pain a person was in, there could be no excuse for taking one’s own life. It was up to God in the heavens to dispense mercy, Him and no one else. For anyone who chose to end their own lives, there was only hell.
Mrs. Maclean found it hard to live with this belief. She sought solace in work. As a teacher, there is always something to do, whether it be a lesson to prepare, homework to grade, or a student’s failings to consider. During my first few years on the job I slept only four hours during the week. On Saturdays and Sundays I struggled to leave my apartment for anything other than to buy essentials. I certainly never subjected my three rooms to the assault of cleaning that Mrs. Maclean unleashed on her house every Saturday morning. Outside of work, the only person she saw was Mrs. Wallace, whom she called for on her way to church on Sundays. She spent the rest of her time preparing lessons, attending staff meetings, or visiting patients at a local hospice. She did not socialise with colleagues, and she was seldom seen in male company, married or otherwise. Even after she became headmistress in 1986, the increase in status and salary did not alter her habits. She did not take holidays, buy better clothes, or redecorate her house. She did not go to the cinema or theatre. Though respected by most people in Comely Bank, many of them her former students, she did not have friends. Although she was neither cold nor aloof, there was something in her manner that discouraged familiarity—people addressed her as “Mrs. Maclean,” almost never “Eileen.” Hers was not only an emotional distance; even when standing in front of you, she did not seem fully present. She was like a ghost who had come to smile and comment on the weather.
Most thought her reserve was a shield she’d acquired during her years as a teacher, a way of defending herself from the stresses of school life. They thought that, even after retirement, she could not lower her guard.
A glimpse at any of her early letters shows how wrong these people were. Sam found one in an old atlas she donated to his shop.
May 15, 1979
Today I was on playground duty because Mr. Bethune is sick. The sun was warm and there was a breeze, and I thought of when we walked by the river. I stood by the oak tree, half in its shade, while the girls ran round and round, calling out each other’s names, screaming in delighted fear when they thought they were caught. Their voices were shrill and loud, and they did not look at me as they turned in their circles, spinning faster and faster, till their faces blurred and instead of features there were only eyes that stared. And then they seemed like wild things that had been tamed but could at any second revert. The tree trunk pushed into my back. I felt lightheaded, dizzy, as if I were the one who was spinning. I closed my eyes and slowly breathed, and then your hand was in mine. We were walking by the river while birds sang in the trees. At the bridge, we picked up sticks and dropped them into the water. When we went to the other side I saw mine emerge but before I could say “Pooh sticks,” you said, “What is that?” I looked downstream and saw a grey blur that was distant, coming closer, still grey but no longer a smudge; now it was two arches that rose and fell, pushing air down, but slowly, too slowly to keep the bird in flight, and yet it came towards us. We stood and watched, my hand in yours, and then, above the rush of the river, we heard the beat of its wings. The heavy flap of a sheet being shaken. A flag fighting the wind. For a moment, we saw the heron entire: the hooded lids, the pointed beak, the speed and line of it. Then it had moved the air beneath and was fast becoming distant. We watched it dwindle, resume its blur, and then you said, “Eileen,” and put your lips to mine. And although you had kissed me before—after our walk up Arthur’s Seat, and while we sat on the tram—I still think of this as our first time.
Sam had many questions after reading this, not least about the identity of the man. But at that time he knew no more about Mrs. Maclean than anyone else, and although it was a mystery, there were many others. Two years would pass before he saw the remainder of the letters. There were hundreds, the earliest from 1956, the last from 2016. Though they varied in tone and length, all addressed the same person, though never by name. All of them were unsent.
The obvious conclusion was that Mrs. Maclean had been involved in a secret love affair. But if she regularly saw this man, why did she write to him? And if he was often absent, why didn’t she send the letters? There is also the matter of her religious beliefs. It seems unlikely that a woman so outwardly devout could be involved in what to her would seem immoral.
These are not the only mysteries. Apart from the day at the river, there are only six, at most seven, occasions she refers to: a walk on the beach; two trips to the cinema; a drive in the country, then a picnic (though these may have been separate occasions); a rainy afternoon spent playing cards; climbing a nearby hill. In hundreds of letters, written over six decades, she returns to these events. By the mid-1970s, the recollections have ceased to differ in detail; by the 1980s they have become a liturgy.
It is only in her later letters that things become clear. The following is from a letter written when she was seventy-nine. The opening, though apparently plain, is uncharacteristic. Instead of reciting the hallowed event—Our father, who art in heaven, that day we walked on the beach—it begins by describing the weather.
February 12, 2015
A cold morning. The pavements were icy. Although there was grit on the road, they had only done the pavement at the crossing place.
On the surface, this is a legitimate complaint for someone Mrs. Maclean’s age. However, she continues:
I put on my black shoes that had better soles, then went out to buy milk. After ten steps I slipped, but kept my balance, which made me cry out, and then some people turned round. On seeing I was still upright, they smiled and walked on. But I was too shocked to move; I stood and stared at the ground. Not because I was afraid of falling. I could imagine breaking my hip, my leg, the back of my head; me lying there and growing cold, the wail of sirens, too late.
It was not this thought that upset me. On the contrary, the reason I was shocked was because the thought did not upset me at all.
There are many similar entries over the following months. She writes of being unwilling to drive, cross busy roads, or go down steep stairs. She confesses to feeling “impatient,” of “wanting what is due.” The tone of her letters becomes desperate. Finally, she speaks to her priest.
July 25, 2015
After the service, I asked Father Robert to hear my confession. We went in a booth that smelt of polish and needed a new cushion. He asked how long it had been since my last confession. “Six years,” I said, and I am sure he was pleased: He has had to listen to so much about Father McCabe, how kind and holy and patient he was. To hear that I had not confessed to him in his last four years (as I have not confessed to Father Robert in his first two) must have been welcome news. I could see his small head nod behind the screen. Then I heard the steps of a woman in heels—they were distant, from the other end of the church, but even if they had been close, just outside the confessional, it would have made no difference. Who cares what an old woman says?
Father Robert asked what I wished to confess. I said I was tired of waiting. At first, this confused him (impatience not usually being thought a sin). He began to apologise for keeping me waiting, but he stopped when I said that every night I prayed I would not wake up next day. Then he breathed out through his mouth, and perhaps it was a sigh. The wish for death by the old is probably something priests are told to expect. They must be bored and relieved to know what to say.
He said what I had expected, what I had said to myself. “It is not for us to decide. It is only God who can choose because He knows all things. He understands when a person is ready and when they need more time.” Father Robert paused, pleased by his rhetoric. Or the pause was intended for me, so I could appreciate such wisdom.
“You must be patient,” he continued. He managed to say, “God will—” before I cut him off.
“I have been patient for over fifty years. I cannot wait any longer.”
The woman outside must have been standing still, because it was only after I’d spoken, in the quiet that followed, that her steps resumed. They approached, passed close by us, then quickly died away.
When Father Robert spoke, he sounded uncertain. “Is there a problem with your health? Are you in pain?” he asked, and even this solicitous enquiry was somehow unconvincing. As if he, in his early forties (and presumably good health), could not yet fully believe in the idea of sickness. It was probably the same with old age: Although he saw it every day, because it had not yet happened to him, it was still as abstract a notion as grace is to most of us.
I said that I was in good health.
He coughed, then said, “You have worked hard. You should enjoy your retirement. You can learn new things, spend time with your friends.”
I told him I did not have any.
“What about your family?”
“All dead.”
“Look,” he said, and sounded annoyed, but for only an instant. The rest of his sentence—something about it being hard to adjust to retirement—had a be-reasonable tone. As if it were only obtuseness that kept me from agreeing.
By then I was certain Father Robert could not help me. He was a man who was too far from death, who had probably never known love. And this made me angry. I said, “What do you think heaven is like? Every day you read about it, every day you speak about it. Is it clouds and angels sitting on thrones? Is it—?”
“I do not know,” he said. And for the first time, he sounded genuine. As if heaven—unlike old age—was something he did not presume to know.
He cleared his throat. “No one who is living does. Even if God told us, we probably wouldn’t understand. What heaven is like should not concern us. We must concentrate on the good we can do now.”
“But how can we not think about it? Isn’t it what we live for? So we can be in a place with people we love for all eternity.”
The shriek of an ambulance broke into the church. I thought of being hit by a car.
“Perhaps,” he said, then stopped. As if, having thought the sentence, he was no longer sure. I did not mind: better he said nothing than more platitudes.
But his final words were spoken in a different voice. His tone was surer when he said, “God loves us. All of us. He gives us our lives and so we must be grateful. Not just in our hearts, but in our actions. Maybe you are not the only one waiting. Maybe He is also waiting.”
“For what?” I said, and my voice leapt, too fast and too eager.
“I don’t know,” said Father Robert. “But you must be patient.”
At the time, this seemed no answer. Afterwards I stood by the side of the road, watching the cars pass.
Poor Mrs. Maclean’s love letters were written to a dead man. It is possible he was still living when she began their “correspondence,” and there was some other reason she did not send the letters—perhaps she lacked the courage, or, as in her sister’s case, the man was already married. However, her mention of having “been patient for fifty years” suggests he had been dead that long. Sam was of the opinion that the man had died in a plane crash. He based this conclusion on a photo he found in one of Mrs. Maclean’s bedroom drawers that pictured a man in an airman’s uniform standing by a row of planes. On the back of it was written, To Eileen, with love from Stanley, September 1954.
Whether it was this man or someone else whom Mrs. Maclean was waiting for, what is certain is that she believed they would be reunited in heaven. This was the hope that made her live like a book with its pages shut.
In the months that followed her confession to Father Robert, Mrs. Maclean began to act strangely. Whenever she met someone she knew, she always stopped to ask how they were. In itself, this was nothing new; she had always been polite. What pleased some, but unnerved most, was the intensity with which she asked. She seemed to care too much. They felt as if she were privy to some secret and terrible information regarding their fate.
The other great change in her character was the compulsive way she tried to be kind. She gave up her place in queues for people in a hurry. If she got in someone’s way—in a shop entrance, or on a narrow stretch of pavement—she would insist that the other person go first, which usually led to the person insisting that she go first (partly because this was general etiquette, but also because she was an elderly woman), to which Mrs. Maclean would again insist they step through first, and perhaps this seemed comic the first time it happened, but soon people dreaded meeting her. It was easier to just push past her.
There were other, more dramatic manifestations of her wish to be charitable. During the freezing winter of 2015, she called out to Alasdair when he was shivering under the bridge. At first he did not hear her faint voice above the sound of the river, but when a series of stones hit the water, he looked up. If he gave little thought to why an old woman who used to ignore him should now offer him shelter, it was because he did not regard it as any great favour, merely his due.
For her part, Mrs. Maclean offered no explanation. All she said was “It’s not far.” Then she set off along the icy pavement, perhaps too quickly for safety. During the short journey he repeated what he always told her, that she should eat more seeds for her bones. But she was not listening.
At home she led him upstairs to a room with a bed whose sheets were printed with roses. There she turned to him, as if to speak, but her mouth stayed closed. Only after a great effort did she say, “I hope you’ll be comfortable.” She left him, and after a moment he began to undress.
He was about to get into bed when she returned. She did not seem to notice, or mind, that Alasdair was naked. She put down a mug and said, “I’ve brought you a hot drink.” From under the blankets he watched her staring past him, and he—who was often oblivious to the feelings of others—could not help noticing the pain on her face, its wrinkles merging into folds, her eyes like coloured glass. She brought her hand to her brow, then smoothed it down to her nose, as if shutting the eyes of a corpse.
Given her obvious reluctance, why did Mrs. Maclean invite Alasdair into her house? Why did she pamper him? Not only with the hot drink, but also with breakfast, and then, when he was leaving, by offering him the crystal bowl she had been given as a retirement present?
The answer was that poor Mrs. Maclean, in her desperation, had interpreted Father Robert’s suggestion that God was “waiting” as a kind of pact. She believed these acts of charity would encourage God to grant the mercy He had been withholding. She may also have been hoping that Alasdair would kill her in her sleep.
The idea that she was trying to petition God is supported by her actions over the following months. She donated many valuable items to the charity shops on the street. And it was not just her possessions, but her time as well. In the late spring of 2016 she began volunteering in Sam’s bookshop, twice a week, for three hours at a time. She sat at the till while he worked in the office, but unlike other volunteers she did not read or even glance at the books. All she did was gaze straight ahead. Sam thought her expression was one of calm expectancy. Like that of a person waiting at a railway station who constantly sees trains go by but knows that someday one must stop. This was how she remained during those final months, right until the clear morning the following August when everyone’s train arrived. On that day, when she looked up, Mrs. Maclean must have smiled.