Standing with the phone receiver pressed against his ear, Miriam’s brother-in-law, Angus Campbell, looked down at the glass of whisky he’d placed on a coaster next to the glossy black Bakelite phone. He hadn’t touched a drop of it yet – it was to be his reward for getting through this conversation. A conversation he had put off for as long as he could. But it was time, as his wife Margaret had said to him last night when they were in bed. She had said it in that way of hers, soft and gentle. Not a demand or an order, simply a statement that he knew to be true.
Angus heard the ringing tone end with the click of a connection.
‘Charles Havelock speaking.’ The voice was gruff, superior and intimidating, which just about summed up his father-in-law.
‘Hello, Charles … Angus here.’ He looked down at the single malt and then up at the clock. He hoped the conversation would not be a long one.
‘Ah, Angus, old chap, good to hear from you. Shame you couldn’t make it down for Christmas, but I know how you don’t like driving in the bad weather.’
Angus shook his head in disbelief. Charles had smashed his record for inserting a put-down into the conversation within a matter of seconds.
‘Bad weather being a bit of an understatement, old man,’ Angus countered. ‘Three feet of snow put paid to us getting out the door, never mind on the road.’ Angus knew Charles would not like his retort, nor being referred to as an old man, but after what he’d heard about his wife’s father, Angus was amazed he could bring himself to speak to him at all. The heavy snowfall had been a blessing in disguise. He and Margaret had been saved from a nightmare of a Christmas Day, according to what Miriam had told them.
‘So,’ Charles said. Angus could hear him blowing out smoke and guessed he was puffing away on one of his expensive cigars. ‘I’m guessing you’re calling about that daughter of mine. Is she ready to come back to the land of the living? She’s been gone long enough.’
Angus marvelled at Charles’s ability to get yet another disparaging comment into the conversation so quickly. He’d made no secret of the fact that he saw Angus’s estate in one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland as some kind of backwater hamlet, stuck in the previous century.
‘Well, if by the land of the living you mean Sunderland, old man, no, she’s not ready to come back.’ Angus felt a rush of anger, which was unusual for him. But this was not a normal conversation.
‘What do you mean? She’s been away for well over two months! She’s not thinking of staying up there, is she?’ Charles snapped, irritated by what he was hearing. ‘She needs to get herself back down here – sort out this debacle of a marriage.’
Angus heard the clink of a glass stopper and knew Charles was pouring himself a brandy. He looked at his own untouched glass of Scotch.
‘People are going to start talking. She’s lucky that husband of hers is keeping a low profile – a very low profile. No one’s got wind – yet.’
Angus heard the strike of a match and the sound of Charles puffing on his cigar.
‘Bloody hell, if she’d just got the divorce papers filed before she left, it might have gone through by now.’
‘There’s a problem,’ Angus said finally.
‘What do you mean, there’s a problem? She’s not ill, is she?’
‘Well, she is, and she isn’t,’ Angus said.
‘Well, what is it! She either is or she isn’t!’
Angus clenched his jaw.
‘Miriam’s a mess,’ he said simply. ‘She arrived on our doorstep tanked up on gin and she’s been that way ever since.’ Angus reckoned she must have drunk the entire contents of the bar in the first-class carriage on her train journey there, considering the state she’d turned up in.
There was silence at the other end of the phone.
‘Your daughter seems to be trying to drink herself into oblivion and to be honest, Charles, she’s doing a pretty good job.’
There was more deathly silence from the other end of the phone. For a second, Angus thought he’d hung up.
‘Bloody hell!’ Mr Havelock suddenly barked, making Angus jump. ‘What’s the matter with her?’
Angus felt like telling him, the matter was that his daughter was reeling from the fact that she had just found out her father had raped underage girls, spawning God knew how many illegitimate children, and had incarcerated his own wife in a mental institution – having lied to his own daughters, and everyone else, by telling them Henrietta was mad.
‘Miriam is struggling with what she discovered on Christmas Day,’ Angus said, desperately trying to keep the disgust he felt for this man out of his voice. He had promised his wife he would deal with the situation in as civil a manner as possible. This now felt easier said than done.
‘All lies!’ Another bark from Mr Havelock. ‘A load of lies.’
Angus thought that his father-in-law actually sounded as though he believed his own words.
‘Regardless,’ Angus said, ‘your daughter is still in a bad way and to be honest, Margaret and I are at a loss to know what to do.’
‘My God! Am I going to end up with a daughter as well as a wife in the local madhouse?’ Mr Havelock exhaled through his nose.
Angus felt himself stiffen. ‘Not unless you decide to get Miriam sectioned as well.’
Mr Havelock said nothing and Angus wondered whether his father-in-law was seriously considering getting his daughter locked up.
‘Dry her out and get her back here,’ Charles said. ‘I don’t care how much it costs, or how you do it – just do it.’
And then the line did go dead, and Angus was left listening to the burr of the disconnect tone.
He put the receiver down, picked up his tumbler of Scotch and downed it in one.