There was a long silence before Netty Munro responded. 'I've always been Netty,' she said. 'To my family and friends. Natasha was just for the public.'
Elizabeth came further into the room. 'Yes, but Natasha Munro. That's awesome.'
'I'm delighted you think so, dear. It never really felt that way to me, though it had its compensations.' She was gazing at Elizabeth with an odd expression, as if they were engaged in some contest that Jane couldn't appreciate. She had the sense that there was some game being played, but she couldn't imagine what it might be.
'I can see now how you can afford a place like this. How you can afford to do what you do.'
'Perhaps,' Munro said. 'Though this place was an inheritance originally. An uncle of mine who died childless. I thought at first I'd use it as a holiday home. Maybe even turn it into apartments and let it out. But I came here and fell in love with it.'
Jane, sitting beside her, was looking baffled, as if the other two were speaking a language she didn't understand. 'Who's Natasha Munro?'
'I am, dear. Or at least I was.'
'She was famous,' Elizabeth said. 'One of the first big female country rock stars. And an actress. I don't know why I didn't recognise her straightaway.'
'Probably because I'm much older than I was then. And all of that is something of an exaggeration. I was hardly a star. Just a Christian singer-songwriter who got lucky and had a few hits. And then got asked to appear in some largely mediocre films. To be honest, I'm surprised that someone as young as you even recognises my name.'
'My father was a huge fan.'
'Ah, well, that makes more sense. He'd have been the right generation. It's nice to be remembered.'
Jane was gazing at her, her expression even more awestruck than Elizabeth's. 'You were a singer?'
'I still am, from time to time. I might even inflict it on you, if you're not well-behaved.' She laughed. 'I just don't do it in public for money any more. Which is a great relief.'
'But it must have been amazing.' Elizabeth pulled out a chair and sat down at the table next to them. 'Travelling the world. Meeting all those other stars. You must have millions of stories.'
'A few,' Munro said. 'A few of them even repeatable in polite company. And I might inflict some on you too if you're not careful. You're right though. It was exciting at first. When you're young and you get the chance to go places you've never dreamed of. But after a few years it gets wearisome – just an endless trail of tour buses and planes and airports and identical theatres. I was big in the US Bible Belt, and frankly it doesn't get more tiresome.'
'Is that why you stopped?' Jane asked.
'Partly, and partly because people weren't listening anyway. I had some hits on the US country charts. A couple of them crossed over and I sold a lot of records on the back of them. But then the hits dried up and I wasn't selling as many records any more. Fashions had moved on, and people were listening to other things. And my Christian stuff was perhaps just a bit too wholesome.'
'But your stuff was timeless,' Elizabeth said. 'I used to love it as a teenager.'
'That must have been a good few years after my heyday. You're right, in that it wasn't really just chart material. The hits were flukes initially. The first one was almost a novelty record. But they sold my albums. I imagine I could have continued a career if I'd wanted to. Focused on the songwriting and selling smaller venues on the basis of people vaguely remembering my name. But I'd really had enough by then. Wanted to jump off and do something different.'
'Farming?' Elizabeth said.
'As I said, that was mainly an accident. Most of my life has been really. One chance encounter or event that's led me from one thing to the next. I've tended to go with the flow. While this place fell into my lap, I decided to try to make a go of it. I had a fair bit of money stashed away, so I was able to invest in new machinery and carry out some repairs that were needed to the building. I knew nothing about farming, but I found a man who did, so I paid him to run the place and, in the process, teach me what he knew. Or at least the most important bits of what he knew. And that's how it happened.'
'You don't regret giving it all up?' Jane asked.
'Not in the slightest. It's not as if I was ever going to be a megastar. I'd had my moment in the sun, and it was time to move on. It was hard work, getting the farm back up to speed. But it was so different from what I'd been doing that it hardly felt like work at all. I wish that were still true, but I think now I'm beginning to be really past it.'
'Do people recognise you in the street?' Elizabeth asked.
Munro laughed. 'Not often these days, I'm relieved to say. Once upon a time they did, when I was appearing on Top of the Pops. I occasionally see people do a double take, as if they know they've seen me from somewhere but can't think where.'
'That was how I was,' Elizabeth said. 'When I first saw you outside. I thought you must be someone I'd met somewhere.'
'Is that right?' Munro said. There was an edge to her voice, Jane thought, though she had no idea of its significance. 'I've had people engage me in conversation about their family or their pets or what they did on their holidays, because they think they already know me but can't work out how. But I can bore you with my wealth of fascinating stories some other time. Shall we take a walk outside so I can show you what we have?' Without waiting for any response, she rose and picked up a pair of walking boots she'd left in the kitchen doorway. 'What kinds of shoes do you have?'
'I've just got a pair of trainers,' Elizabeth said.
Jane nodded. 'Me too.'
'That should be okay for the moment.' Munro stooped to pull on her own boots. 'The ground will be dry, given the weather we've been having, so if you avoid the very muddy patches you should be fine. Go and get them on and we'll go outside.'
A few minutes later, they were standing outside the back door of the farmhouse. There was a large open storage barn on their right, containing various farm machinery. To their left, a newly seeded barley field stretched away, slowly descending in the direction of the firth. 'So,' Munro explained, 'the fields over here are given over to barley and some wheat. The barley is used in the whisky industry, so it goes to a good home. Some of it eventually makes its way back here in liquid form. We've just planted this year's crop. That faint sheen of green across the surface is the first shoots beginning to appear.'
'It's huge,' Jane said, staring out in the direction of the water.
'We have a fair few acres.' Munro led them further down the farm track, past the barn. Behind the barn, Jane could see a small shanty town of other wooden buildings, presumably more storage. There was another large barn across the field. Munro gestured to their right, where grassland stretched up towards the elevated horizon. 'We have sheep grazing up there normally. They've been taken inside in preparation for lambing.'
'You have lambs?' Jane said. 'Will we be able to see them?'
'Of course. You can even have a go at feeding some of the smaller ones, if you like.'
To Jane, this just seemed like further proof that she'd stepped into a different world. Up to now, farming had meant little to her. A word used on supermarket packaging. Something she'd seen on TV in a documentary or a soap. She was standing in the middle of one, gazing in mild wonder at the tractor in the barn, the array of imposing but unidentifiable machinery beside it. It looked as if there would be livestock for her to gaze at and even to touch.
'It's not a large farm by local standards,' Munro said. 'But it's enough to eke out a living, especially after I invested to bring it up to modern standards. So that, combined with my royalties from songs and recordings, keeps me comfortable enough.'
'She must be loaded,' Elizabeth whispered to Jane. 'Place like this.'
'I–'
Munro clearly had sharper ears than the two girls realised. She turned to gaze at Elizabeth 'I wish I were,' she said. 'But you don't make big money in farms. Not up here. I've a little stashed away from my previous life. But mostly in investments and probably nothing like as much as you'd think.' Her eyes were fixed on Elizabeth, as if she were issuing a warning.
'I'm sorry, I didn't mean–'
'No, dear. I know you didn't mean anything. I just like to make things clear.' She had already turned and was heading back towards the farmhouse. Elizabeth tried to catch Jane's eye, but Jane had decided that she didn't want to appear complicit with Elizabeth. She had no idea what Elizabeth's game might be, but it seemed unlikely that she would remain as a long-term guest. Jane wanted to do nothing that might place her own position at risk.
As they reached the corner of the farmhouse. Munro paused and waved her arm airily in the direction of the firth below them. 'That pastureland down there belongs to the farm too. Now, let's go inside, and I'll get us a cold drink. We can take advantage of the fine weather and sit out on the decking for a while.'
She led them back into the cool of the kitchen, and busied herself getting items out of the fridge. 'We can have something stronger later, but maybe just some home-made lemonade for now? I made this earlier.' She placed an earthenware jug on the kitchen table and fetched some tumblers from one of the cupboards. She poured lemonade into each of the tumblers and pushed them towards the two young women. 'Let's go outside. I'll open the patio doors in the living room.'
They followed her back into the sitting room. The sun was streaming in through the large windows, and for a moment, after the relative gloom of the kitchen and hall, Jane was dazzled. As she blinked, she heard Munro saying: 'Ah, there you are. There's some lemonade out in the kitchen.'
As Jane’s sight cleared, she saw that a woman, perhaps even younger than herself or Elizabeth, was sitting on the sofa. Her body was curled around itself, as if preparing to ward off an attack, and she looked terrified at their presence. She was staring down at the floor, her mousy blonde hair concealing her face.
'Is everything all right?' Munro was suddenly looking concerned.
The woman mumbled something inaudible. There was a book butterflied face down on the sofa beside her. Some kind of romantic novel, Jane thought looking at the pastel cover, though she couldn't make out the title.
Munro was moving to sit beside the woman, but she paused. 'Perhaps the two of you had better go out and sit on the decking. I'll come and join you in a moment. This is our third guest–'
'Aye, I know her,' Elizabeth said. 'Alicia Swinton. How you doing, Alicia?'
There was a moment's silence as the two women stared at each other. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Alicia Swinton burst into tears.