At first Alice had found the gossip amusing, the overheard snatches of conversations, the furtive muttering in the butcher’s, the baker’s, the five-bar-gate maker’s, abruptly halting as her presence became known. She’d later laughed about it and shared the stories with the hens.
Alice doesn’t worry when the local policeman came plodding up the track, holding on to his hat with one hand. He is not a threat, perhaps visiting to warn her of dogs on the loose worrying the sheep. Plainclothes policemen of mysterious variety are threatening; they are the ones she fears.
“Miss Ramsay. Constable Harris.”
“Come in. I’ll put the kettle on.”
He is too much of a Highlander to refuse.
As he sips the tea, he looks around. Frankly, openly, he stares. The kitchen, with slate floors and whitewashed walls and cooking range—an Aga, he notes—is similar to most farm kitchens yet like nothing he’s ever known. The bright cushions, curtains, rugs he takes no notice of. The flowers and leaves hanging from the pulley, the fresh tree branches standing in a zinc bucket in a corner, he notices and doesn’t understand. However, the paintings and, most of all, the small and larger skulls used as ornaments, and in the case of a broken fox skull, a pen holder, fascinate him. “Unusual,” he was later to testify. “No normal,” he was later to say.
“Miss Ramsay,” he begins.
She sees how uncomfortable he is and doesn’t help. Just waits, arms crossed.
“There’s this woman claims she knows you, a Mrs. North.”
“Yes, I’ve met a Mrs. North.”
“And she claims you gave her some tea, herbs . . .”
“For her morning sickness. Yes.”
“Aye. Right.” He has his notebook open, his pen poised, but is looking down at his boots, seeing how the mud has splattered the usual high shine and thinking they need a good clean, thinking why wasn’t there a woman around who could ask the uncomfortable questions. Constable Harris’s knowledge of the internal workings of women’s bodies was still at fifteen-year-old-schoolboy level.
“Mrs. North,” Alice prompted.
“She lost the baby.” He says this without looking at her.
Alice knew already. “That’s sad.” She remembers the timid wee woman, how desperate she was to have a baby, a son. And she remembers the fading bruises on the woman’s left arm.
“I fell over,” Mrs. North had said.
Alice had pretended to believe her.
“Trouble is,” the young constable says, “she—well, mostly him, her husband—they’re saying it was your fault. You made her this potion, and that’s why she lost the bairn.”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
He remembered the husband saying that because she had no man and no children, she was jealous of those who did. “I don’t know,” he says.
At the end of the farm track, then the single-track road with passing places, Joanne turned right for the main road south. The meeting with Alice had been oddly tiring. The drive home, with the last hour in the darkest dark, she acknowledged might be hazardous. “Blast McAllister for being right,” she muttered as she changed down to second gear and drew into a passing place to allow a large lorry full of frantic sheep, heading for the abattoir, and late, to speed past. The chorus of terrified bleats upset Joanne. Pulling out onto the main road again, she realized how exhausted she was, how unsafe it would be to drive nearly four hours, half of that after sunset.
Four months ago she had been shut in a cellar by a madwoman for days, and the dark was still a challenge. It would be hours until the light faded, but the final stretch on a twisting, challenging drive around two firths, over bridges narrow and humpbacked, and under the doglegs of the railway line would be nerve-racking.
She saw the signpost for the town, followed by a sign for a hotel in town, and it seemed a good alternative. And exciting. Joanne could not remember ever having spent a night alone in a strange bed in a strange place.
The reception desk had a brass bell with a sign saying “Ring.” She did.
“Hello. How can I help you?” The woman was middle-aged, with brown middle-length hair, dressed in a middle-aged matron’s uniform of tweed skirt and Shetland jumper and a single strand of freshwater pearls. Then she smiled with a much younger smile.
“Do you have a room for tonight?”
“We do. Lucky there’s no golf tournament right now, else we’d be booked out.” The woman opened the register. “One night?”
“Yes, please. Mrs. Joanne McAllister,” she said, then asked, “And can I use the phone? It’s a trunk call; I’ll reverse the charges.”
“Down the corridor, next to the snug bar.”
“Yes, operator, we’ll accept the charges,” Annie answered. “Mum, where are you? Why aren’t you home yet?”
“I’m fine.” It was like speaking to her former mother-in-law, Granny Ross. “Just don’t fancy the drive here and back in one day. Can I speak to McAllister?”
“McAllister! It’s your wife.” Joanne could hear her daughter’s delight in saying that.
“Joanne. Are you OK?”
“Absolutely. I’ve found a fancy man up the glens and am about to enjoy a night of passion in a den of iniquity, followed by a cup of cocoa and a good night’s sleep.”
“Didn’t know Sutherland was that exciting.” He laughed. “Glad to hear you’re not taking to the road this late. How was your adventure?”
“Interesting. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home.”
“Call me in the morning when you leave?”
“I will. And thanks.”
“What for?”
“For not telling me off for not setting off back home earlier.”
“I’m your husband. Not your keeper. Sleep tight.”
Supper at the hotel was simple and delicious.
“Not much call for meals this time o’ year,” the landlady-cum-barmaid-cum-receptionist said, “but you’re welcome to a share of the shepherd’s pie I made for we’re own tea.”
“Thank you, that would be lovely.” Joanne was hungry. Dinner was served in the lounge bar, the dining room being colder than outside in the street. With a side serve of mashed turnips, the steaming hot pie—made with lamb mince, she guessed—filled her up. For the first time since her injury, she had alcohol outside of the safety of her home, a small glass of port.
“To warm me up.” Why she had to explain, almost apologize, she didn’t know.
“So what brings you up here?” the landlady asked as she came in to clear the plates.
“Well, I’ve never been this far up the northeast coast before,” was all Joanne could think to reply.
“And you’re here chasing witches.” Seeing Joanne’s embarrassment, the woman laughed; she had a good laugh and a good smile. “Don’t worry. Mrs. Mackenzie at the garage told everyone her son Calum is about to make the big time.” Again she read Joanne’s face. “Publication in the Highland Gazette?”
“Big time? I’ll have to tell my husband that. He’s the editor,” she explained. “As for witches, if they accused every woman who makes herbal teas, or those who live alone in the wilds or keep a black cat, of being a witch, well . . .”
“You’re right there.” The landlady let out a deep raucous laugh that could have come from a forty-a-day smoker, which she wasn’t. “Och, it was never really about witches. It was stupid gossip that got out of hand.” She sighed. “Sorry, I’m still right upset. Miss Ramsay is a friend.”
“It must have been quite a controversy,” Joanne said.
“Thon poor wifie that lost her baby, she wasn’t thinking clear. As for her man, he’s a right head case. It was him who called Alice a witch at the trial. The name stuck. Mind you, some folk use ‘witch’ when they want to say the ‘b’ word but daren’t.” She stopped. “Sorry, I’m blethering on. And no quoting me, right?”
“Not without your permission.”
“She’s a right nice woman, Miss Ramsay, keeps to herself. She calls in here from time to time, her and me being more educated than most o’ them round here. Went to art college so she did. I could have gone too, but I met Mr. Galloway, you know how it is.” Mrs. Galloway was proud that she had been to the Academy, proud she’d passed the exams. She thought of herself as educated. Though not highborn like Alice Ramsay, she was proud the artist had chosen her as a friend.
“She visits them at the local Old People’s Home, talks to them. Listens to their memories. She donated one of her paintings. Right kind of her. And another thing, since you’re wanting to know about her, Miss Ramsay always pays her bills on time.”
Mrs. Galloway had learned this from the man and his boy who did the renovations on the estate, likewise the man who brought firewood, plus the hardware and farm supplies store. They all said she paid in cash. Even Mrs. Mackenzie, the town and county chief gossipmonger, could not fault Miss Ramsay, as she always paid the garage bills and the petrol account on the due date.
Joanne knew that in a small community where most businesses survived from one job to the next, a reputation for prompt payment put you at the top of the queue where tradesmen were concerned; it was also the measure of a decent person.
“Another thing about her . . .” Joanne could sense that Mrs. Galloway cared for Alice Ramsay and she was glad Alice had at least one friend. “Miss Ramsay was really good to my mother before she . . .” A tear glistened. “Sorry, I’ve said too much. She doesn’t need me discussing her with a stranger.” She began backing away. Gossip had condemned Miss Ramsay to months of misery, and Mrs. Galloway was not about to be another of the tongue-wagging brigade—no matter how sympathetic this Mrs. McAllister seemed.
“I would never publish anything about Miss Ramsay without clearing it with her first,” Joanne promised.
“I hope all this nonsense is soon dead and buried. She doesn’t deserve . . .” She shook her head, banishing the mental midgies. “If there’s nothing else I can get you . . .”
Joanne smiled. “No, thanks. The pie was lovely.”
“Thanks. Not very grand but filling. Breakfast’s between seven and nine. See you in the morning.” She pushed the door half open with her hip, the tray in both hands. “By the by, if you want, I can point you to the stone that shows where the last witch in Scotland was burned. Only a wee bit of a marker stone, mind, but at least you can say you seen it.”
“Thanks.” Joanne was not at all sure she wanted to visit the spot. The story was gruesome enough, and horribly unfair was her verdict when she read that the woman was old and probably mentally unstable. The only redeeming information was that the witch’s daughter had escaped the same fate, never to be discovered. Perhaps her descendants are living hereabouts. She grinned at the thought.
Although her legs ached from the walk up the last mile of the glen, with the left leg aching most from the endless changing of gears on the drive to the northeastern town, Joanne had no difficulty falling asleep. The bed was perfect—the landlady had put a hot water bottle in to take the chill off the sheets. Her last thoughts were of the execution.
1728. The date was branded in her memory. Janet Horne was the name. The trial documents recorded that her daughter had a withered hand. Joanne wondered if that was why she was accused of witchcraft, knowing that over the centuries women were executed based on equally flimsy justifications.
Joanne eventually slept but kept the bedside light on, and when she awoke, she was surprised by the lack of nightmares. Not even a dream, or so she thought, had kept her from a long deep sleep. She awoke at seven, and that was only because she heard men talking in the hotel courtyard and the noise of bottles clanking as the empty crates were lifted back into the delivery lorry.
After a bowl of porridge and lots of tea, Joanne listened to the landlady’s instructions and walked through town to the place of execution.
All the while she was telling herself, I do not want to do this, yet she kept on walking. It was a blustery, cloud-racing wind-shifting rain-threatening day, and she enjoyed the air. The spot was a stone. Just a stone. She stared at it. Contemplating how a soul died in agony made her shudder. Father was right; too much imagination, that’s my trouble.
Joanne drove to the petrol station on the main road south of town. She watched a wee woman in blue overalls come over. Her perm was so tight her silver-streaked hair made her look like an elderly poodle, and Joanne tried not to giggle. But in the woman’s eyes there was no doggie warmth, rather a shrewd scrutiny as she examined the customer, the stranger.
“Fill her up, please,” Joanne asked.
“Righty-oh.” The woman put in the nozzle, and as the fumes drifted towards her in the North Sea wind, Joanne put a hankie to her face.
“Bother you, does it? Och, you get used to it in my job. Calum is always teasing me, saying it’s a wonder I have any sense of smell working here for near twenty-five years.”
“Calum? Are you Mrs. Mackenzie, Calum’s mother?”
“I am that.”
“Joanne Ross, from the Highland Gazette.”
“Oh, aye, you’re here because o’ poor Miss Ramsay. Right terrible that trial was. Mind you, some folk have nothing better to do than gossip. Then again, the woman’s aye here there and everywhere.”
“Really? I heard Miss Ramsay likes the quiet life.”
“You should see the size of her petrol bills.” Even though Alice Ramsay was one of the garage’s best customers, Mrs. Mackenzie was tutting at another example of what she saw as Miss Ramsay’s deceptions. “No, she must cover a fair distance, as she buys at least a tank o’ petrol a week. Up to thon so-caa’d artist stuff, no doubt.”
Joanne had to stop herself from staring. Telling this to a stranger? Has the woman no self-awareness? She considered herself a person who was not interested in gossip. Until Don McLeod, deputy editor at the Gazette, had asked her, in her early days as a fledgling reporter, how was a journalist to do their job without listening to gossip?
The trick was to distinguish between gossip and facts, he taught her, so always check, then double check, and get at least two quotes, with names and ages and addresses.
“You must know Miss Ramsay well, if you see her every week?”
Mrs. Mackenzie sensed she had said too much. “There’s knowing, and knowing.” She took the pound note and went inside to fetch change. Examining Joanne through the window, she decided Mrs. Ross was another of those women who didn’t know her place.
“Cheery-bye, nice meeting you,” she said as she handed over the coins. Watching the car pull out into the main road, Mrs. Mackenzie thought over what her son, Calum, had told her of this woman.
“It’ll be good for my career to learn from Joanne,” he’d said, after he’d apologized four times for being late.
Calling her by her first name indeed, Mrs. Mackenzie was thinking. That flighty fiancée o’ his is a bad enough influence. Now he’s listening to a woman who should be at home minding her family, not haring about the countryside on her own, asking after witches.
The journey back felt shorter, though the drive took the same time. Joanne felt she had proved to herself, and to McAllister, that she was capable of an outing without someone hovering, their mere presence implying, Are you all right? Are you sure you’re up to it? Maybe you should . . . ?
I’m fine! she wanted to shout. Completely well. All I need is inspiration, a story, a plot, anything I can lose myself in, and just write.
Driving over the Bonar Bridge, glancing at the mudflats of the Dornoch Firth, the rotting-vegetation low-tide salt stench seeping in through a third-of-the-way-open window, a notion came to her, making her smile. If only I could ask a witch.
She spoke to the mirror. “ ‘I haven’t been able to find a plot,’ I’ll say. ‘Aye, I have just the spell for plots lost and found,’ the witch will tell me. ‘That will be two silver shillings, thank you.’ ”