When she knew for certain that she had cancer, Marion came home and fetched her waterproof jacket and boots, took the car out the old Evanton road and headed for Cnoc Fyrish. She would climb the hill, sit under the monument for a while, and then walk back down and go home to talk to other people.
The hill itself was only just over a thousand feet; a good hour’s walk to the summit. They had done it many times with the children, and she had gone up with Eleanor too, just after she had moved here. At the top, great stone arches had been built by the hard labour of local men, given employment by Hector Munro when he came back in glory from the Siege of Serangapatum. The arches represented the gates of the Indian city. Marion had explained all this to Eleanor, on that first walk they had made together up the hill, when Eleanor was newly widowed and you had to talk to her all the time, tell her things, keep her from brooding. Or so other people advised. Marion had not been so sure.
‘So it was to give men work,’ Eleanor asked as they set off through the trees at the foot of the hill.
That was his idea.’
Then, at the top, standing with her hand on one of the stone pillars, Eleanor turned and said, ‘It was all pointless, wasn’t it? All that lugging great muckle stones up the hill … it wasn’t work with any dignity, or that would help their families in the future, was it?’
Marion had agreed. The sisters sat in silence, drinking tea from the flask Marion had brought, their backs leaning on hard stone. They looked along the firth to the Sutors at Cromarty, the rigs by Invergordon tiny at this distance. In May sunshine, the landscape, blue and green, ochre and brown, was rich with fertility, new growth. ‘How beautiful it all is,’ Eleanor said. ‘I’m glad I came.’
‘So am I,’ Marion answered, and that was the last time she tried to distract Eleanor with talking. The land, the shining water, the Cairngorms far and misty away to the south – all that was what rested the spirit, not talking.
Now, wrapped up against November cold, Marion remembered that climb with Eleanor. She was so new in the place, she had had to be told all the local stories. Now she belonged. Perhaps she should have brought her sister with her this time, but she had not yet called Eleanor. Only the hospital knew, and Fergus.
At the top the wind was fierce, and she zipped up her Goretex jacket, pulling the hood forward. The light was going already, so she should set off down again as soon as possible. She would just get her breath. The hills were dark today, obscure, and there was no view. You could not even see the Sutors. But in the firth, two or three rigs were lit up like Christmas trees, winking and glittering in the bleak afternoon. Marion touched one of the stone pillars and it struck cold even through her glove. So much wasted effort, just so that succeeding generations could tell Munro’s story. Still, she was glad she had come. Soon she might not be fit enough for the climb. Another year could pass before she did it again.
She must go down now, go home and see Eleanor, and talk to her children, her father. This was when you wanted your mother still to be there, to tell you it would be all right. But it might not be all right. Cancer. Cancer. She said the word over and over to herself, till it had no meaning left, was two syllables like a mantric chant, no more. Can-cer, can-cer. Still she stood in the fading light, unmoving, afraid.
Late in November, Marion went into hospital, and the operation to remove her left breast, and thus excise the cancer, was successfully carried out. Afterwards, she seemed to recover quickly, and was quite cheerful when they went in to see her.
‘The good news,’ she told Eleanor and David, who sat on hard chairs beside her bed, ‘did Fergus say? They’re not going to start my treatment before the New Year – I’ve to have a scan and some tests or something first. So I’ll have Christmas more or less in peace, without having to worry about the side effects.’
‘Side effects?’ David, who had slumped, and was flicking through a magazine, drew himself up.
‘From the chemotherapy.’
‘So … they’re definitely going ahead with that?’
Marion made a face. ‘Not looking forward to it, I have to say. Six months, they think. Maybe I won’t be able to work much.’
‘Och, you’re not to bother about that,’ Eleanor said. ‘Just get well.’
Marion sighed. ‘The way things happen – it’s ironic. There’s a full-time post coming up at Easter, and before all this started, I was thinking of applying for it. Kirsty’s in Primary 7 next year, and it’s the same school; it would be so convenient. I was beginning to feel I was ready to go full-time.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Till this happened.’
Eleanor murmured reassurance, and meant it, but she was thinking that if Marion worked full-time, they would not meet so often, and really, she should be the one to find a job. I’ve only one child, and not even a husband, she scolded herself, but felt weak even contemplating work, having to be out of the house every morning, tied to some routine she could not even imagine, let alone wish for. Anyway, for now, she decided, she was needed at home to support Marion and Fergus, and see them through this.
David was restless in the ward. Since Eleanor had told him about Marion, he had behaved like someone trapped, who wants to leave, but knows he must not. He had alternated between this sullenness, suffering but not talking, and talking too much, suggesting alternative therapies he had heard or read about, each sillier than the last, it seemed to Eleanor. Now he got up and strolled about, then stood looking out of the window at the spread of parked cars opposite the hospital, gleaming in winter sunshine.
‘Look at it,’ Marion grumbled, her gaze following David. The dreariest autumn for years, and then as soon as I’m in hospital, the sun shines.’
‘But you’ll be home by the end of the week,’ Eleanor soothed.
David turned and came back to the bed. ‘I’m going out for a fag. OK?’
Marion shook her head, smiling. ‘You don’t like hospitals.’
‘Well, who would?’ He sounded defensive. ‘Be glad to see you out of here.’ He bent and kissed her. On her hot cheek, briefly, the roughness of his beard, and the smell of tobacco and garlic. Then he was off, moving easily down the corridor now, on his way out.
‘He’s restless,’ Marion said. ‘Not just in the hospital. Isn’t he?’
‘Och, he never settles anywhere.’ Eleanor was annoyed with David. Somehow, when you needed him, he thinned out, grew insubstantial. There was nothing to lean on. She thought of Fergus, his devoted attention to Marion, the crease of anxiety on his forehead deepened in the last weeks. Then she looked at her sister, taking in what David did not like, what filled Fergus with concern, what she herself was afraid of: Marion flushed and weary, her hair flat, damp-looking, not springing up glossy with copper lights as it usually did. The pink nightdress, and beneath it, a white bra with broad straps, that held one living breast, and on the other side, some sort of padding, that looked (at first) just the same. But was not. Eleanor’s heart beat fast. How often would she sit here in the future, by Marion’s hospital bed, growing sick of the sight of the ward: too familiar, the cluttered locker, the swivel table holding get-well cards, a bottle of lemon barley, tissues, paperbacks … Above the bed, the hothouse roses, tight furled, never to open, that Fergus had brought that first day.
Marion leaned back and closed her eyes. ‘Ah me,’ she said. ‘I’ll be glad to get home.’ After a moment, she sat up again. ‘It’s what I can’t understand about David, how he doesn’t seem to want that. To go home.’
‘Yes, well, he never has one to go to.’
‘Except Pitcairn.’
‘Which is probably why he turns up there now and again.’ Eleanor glanced at her watch ‘I suppose I’d better make a move, collect him on the way to the car.’ She began to put her jacket on and stood up. ‘I do hate leaving you, though.’
‘It’s all right. Fergus will be in later.’
‘I know.’ They looked at each other. ‘Maybe it won’t be so bad.’
‘The chemo? We’ll just have to wait and see.’
Eleanor still did not go. ‘Marion, I was thinking – about Christmas.’
‘Oh God, don’t. I’m so glad I got the kids’ presents before I came in here.’
‘It’s more than I’ve done. Look, why don’t we go to Pitcairn? All of us? David will stay on with Dad – it was his idea, actually. I’ll cook – David and I will cook. And I’ll go down a day or two earlier to sort the house out. Then you don’t need to have anybody to stay, and the aunts will still be included, so all you have to do is sit in the car till you get there. And leave the rest to everyone else.’
Marion looked doubtful. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Eleanor, the kids like to be at home.’
Eleanor pulled on her gloves. ‘Think about it. The kids could cope for once. Fergus is quite keen. I didn’t think he would be, but he said he was in favour of it, as long as you were happy. It would just be for the two days – down for Christmas Eve, back Boxing Day morning. You’d be home in time for Fergus’s mother’s Boxing Day do if she’s still having it. Or you could use it as an excuse not to go … whatever.’
Marion smiled, and leaned back on her pillows. ‘Oh well,’ she said, I’ll see what the family say. I’ll think about it.’
Eleanor patted her arm. ‘I’m off. See you tomorrow.’
Outside the sliding doors, David stood with his hands in the pockets of his Barbour jacket (bought when he had intended to live in the country and rear rare-breed chickens), waiting for her.
‘Did you ask about Christmas?’
‘She’s going to think about it.’
‘Good, we’ll work on Fergus.’
‘Why are you so keen? We could just scale the whole thing down, try to stop her making pies and puddings, not invite anyone else.’
‘Wouldn’t work,’ he said as they made for the car park. ‘Anyway, I’m all for big family Christmases, I’m good at them.’
Eleanor thought of the Christmases he had spent with Marion or with her in their grown-up, married lives. Spectacular and festive, and ending in tragedy. No, that wasn’t fair, it was only twice that happened, and … She put her key in the car door, looking at David over the roof.
‘As long as you do intend to stay and help,’ she said.
‘Well, I can’t promise to last out till Hogmanay,’ he shrugged. ‘Got friends who want to go skiing, might go with them. But I do promise to stay for Christmas.’
‘Skiing? I thought you hadn’t any money?’
‘Come on, it’s freezing out here, let’s get home.’
Once they were on the road, pausing at traffic lights, Eleanor said again, ‘Skiing? I didn’t know you could ski.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me.’ He was looking out of the window; she could not see his face.
‘But that’s expensive, isn’t it? All the equipment and stuff?’
‘Lights have changed,’ he said. She put the car in gear and moved forward. David folded his arms; glancing sideways she saw his profile was severe, secretive. Then he seemed to relax.
‘Got a business deal coming off,’ he said. ‘Should net me a few thousand. Enough for a holiday anyhow, before I get started on the internet thing.’
‘So … are you really doing that?’ She did not believe in the business deal. Sometimes she thought he did not tell the truth about anything, as if, a long time ago, he had lost himself in his own maze of lies.
‘Looks like it. But Phil’s based in Perth just now, so I’ll be going down there for a while.’
A fortnight ago, she would have ached with disappointment. Now, she was almost relieved. Somehow, whether he was there or not, mattered less. What mattered was Marion, and that she got better. Marion must not die. All their lives would change too much, if Marion died. There was no point in thinking like that, but she could not help her mind turning again and again to this one terrible fear. Marion was the centre they all clung to. By the time their mother had died, she was no longer the centre; her children had grown up and created their own families. That was how it should be, with death. Eleanor thought of her mother’s funeral, and it struck her with such force that she slowed for the Tore roundabout only just in time, that if David drifted off again, he might not be there should Marion die. Eleanor pictured Marion’s funeral, the white-faced children, the packed church, the flowers banked up. But no David.
He had come at the last minute, when Faith died. He had walked into the house as they stood in the hall, the aunts and John, Fergus and Marion and Eleanor. The children were in the living room, watching television in subdued silence, while they waited for the funeral cars. But when a car sounded on the drive, it was with a squeal of brakes, the gravel skidding beneath wheels, not the stately crunch over stones, the quiet engines of the Daimlers they were listening for. Eleanor and Marion and Fergus looked at each other, and their father suddenly headed for the front door.
‘I got the message,’ David said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Dad.’ Taking in the black ties, the sombre coats. He stood in the rain in an old sweatshirt and jeans, looking thin and young and unshaven.
‘Come in, son,’ his father said. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
Later, Marion said to Eleanor that she had smelled drink on David as he embraced her, but Eleanor thought she must be mistaken.
‘He drove all the way,’ she protested. ‘From Birmingham, he said. Overnight. It couldn’t be drink, surely not.’
Marion pursed her lips, knowing she was right.
He had stayed on after the funeral, after the others had gone home, apparently with no job to go back to, and soon no money. For several weeks he seemed to do little but sleep and watch television. Then he and John took down the old henhouse, and he started talking about putting up another, and breeding rare fowl at Pitcairn. Somewhere, he must have had some money, Eleanor realised, to buy that Barbour jacket, and the green rubber boots.
She had gone down to spend a weekend with her father, primed by Marion to find out what David was doing, and afterwards was glad she had not taken Claire with her. She left again on the Sunday morning, just as her father was getting ready for church, and managed to say to him, both of them awkwardly standing in the kitchen, ‘Does David drink as much as that … well, often?’
John had hesitated. ‘He’d a good drop last night, right enough.’ He picked up his Bible and car keys. ‘He’s young, he needs company. I think he’s going to bide with a couple of friends until he finds a job. Somewhere about Edinburgh, he says.’
‘Time he did find a job.’
‘He’s a sponger,’ Marion had said. ‘It’s an awful thing to say about your own brother, but I hate the thought of him there with Dad all that time. And Dad so vulnerable.’
‘What?’
‘Well, where is he getting money from? He’s none of his own.’
‘He can’t need to spend much, at Pitcairn.’
But now Eleanor knew about the new waxed jacket, the empty bottles standing by the kitchen bin. She kissed her father and saw him off to church. She would be on her way North again by the time he got back at lunch-time. David had not appeared, and she did not want to go to his room to say good-bye. Later, she was sorry, since two days after that he had left Pitcairn, telling his father he would be working in Edinburgh. Since then, he had not contacted any of them until he had turned up at Pitcairn this October.
So here he was, in the car beside her as she drove the last mile into Dingwall.
‘I want to stop at the supermarket,’ Eleanor said.
‘We could have a drink.’
‘No, we couldn’t. I have to get back for Claire.’
‘She’s fifteen – she won’t bother if we’re a bit late.’
‘Fourteen. Her birthday’s not till April. You should know that – it’s the day after yours. You used to be so good at remembering, when she was wee.’
‘Why can’t we just stop at the Queen Mary and have a quick pint?’
‘It’s nearly five already. There’s not time. Anyway, I don’t want to sit in the Queen Mary.’
‘You’re right. Place is a prize dump. Time I went back to Edinburgh – to drink in a decent pub.’
‘Oh well, if that’s what counts.’
‘It helps.’
Eleanor drove into the supermarket car park, and switched off the engine. David said, ‘I’ll nip round to the old Queen M while you do the shopping, eh? Just for one pint. You can pick me up.’
‘But I’m only going to buy a bit of chicken and some milk—’
He got out and banged on the roof twice like a drumbeat before he slammed the door. ‘Good girl. See you soon.’
When she went to collect him, he was deep in conversation with a group of men she vaguely recognised, but did not know. Football, the amazing things computers could do, the state of the world – conversation she had no wish to join.
‘Hi.’ He was cheerful now. ‘What do you want? A wee dram?’
‘I’m driving, David, and I’ve got to get home.’
‘Right. Fine. Just finish this pint.’ But he had hardly begun; he must be on his second already. Eleanor perched on a bar stool beside him and waited. Again she refused a drink, feeling conspicuous. The men eyed her, and one said ‘how are ye the day?’ but they soon turned back to their drinks and their talk. Eleanor sat glazed with boredom for a few minutes, then slipped off the stool.
‘Look,’ she said, tugging David’s arm. He had his back to her by now. ‘I really do have to go.’ She half expected him to protest again, or even refuse to move. Then what would she do? It was familiar, this getting David out of a bar, but she had never minded before, when they had been in the Red Lion near their new suburb in Berkshire, she and Ian and David. She had been willing to stay on then, having no children to go home to. It was Ian who always got up first, wanting to leave.
David came peaceably enough and in the car, he was contrite. ‘Sorry, sorry. Guy insisted on buying me a pint. What could I do?’ He ruffled her hair. ‘You’re not mad at me, are you?’
‘Don’t do that.’
‘You are mad. Sorry.’ He slumped in the seat, and gazed out of the window at darkness, like a scolded child. She smoothed her hair with one hand, relenting.
‘I just don’t like being late for Claire.’
‘Of course not. You’re quite right. I’m a bastard.’
Eleanor laughed. ‘No, you’re not. You’re just too fond of bars. And drinking.’
‘My hobby,’ he admitted, cheering up.
At home he carried the shopping in. Claire was in her room, and had not lit the fire. The cottage was cold and dark. Eleanor ran upstairs to see Claire, and when she came back down, David had unpacked. But since he seemed, even after several weeks, not to know where anything was stored, this was not much help. He leaned against the Rayburn, watching Eleanor put things in cupboards, and eating the heel of a new loaf.
‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘of going down to Pitcairn on Friday. I could start sorting things out for Christmas.’
‘You could clean the bathrooms,’ Eleanor suggested. ‘Marion’s always saying how awful they are since Mum died. And light a fire in the dining room for a while every day. That would help.’
‘I was thinking about getting a tree – a really massive one, like when we were kids. And that box of decorations – is it still in the loft?’
‘Goodness, they’ll all be dusty, and probably broken.’
‘I’ll get new ones.’
‘I thought—’
‘Make the house really festive.’ He caught Eleanor’s eye. ‘I’ll light fires, promise.’
‘Well, I’ll come down the day before Christmas Eve,’ Eleanor offered.
‘You can do the bathrooms then.’
Eleanor swiped at him with a tea towel. ‘Ha! Just wait – I’ll make you work, when I get there. Seriously, David, we must make sure everything’s warm and comfortable for Marion.’
‘Yeah, sure. I know.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘Right. What’s for tea?’
‘Oh … chicken pieces.’
‘Let me at them. Stir fry? You got a red pepper, onions?’
Eleanor left him to it, and went to light her own fire. Soon she could smell frying, and a hot spicy smell floated out of the kitchen.
‘What’s David cooking?’ Claire came into the living room, where Eleanor had discovered three empty beer cans behind the sofa, and a full ash tray.
‘God, I hate him smoking in here – he knows that. I knew I could smell it.’ She looked round. ‘He’s being creative with chicken and red peppers, I think.’
Claire watched her mother tip the ash tray into the fire. ‘He doesn’t smoke in here, really, Mum. He just brings the ash tray in after he’s been smoking at the front door. I told him he shouldn’t drop fag ends in the garden.’
‘Did you? Good for you.’
‘How long’s he staying?’
‘He’s going down to Pitcairn on Friday to help Grandpa. We were thinking – it depends how Auntie Marion is – but we were thinking of going to Pitcairn for Christmas.’
‘I don’t want to. I want to go to Eilidh’s, like we did last year.’
‘No, I mean – we’ll all go. Whole family.’
‘Will Auntie Marion be out of hospital?’
‘Oh yes, in a day or two. So we could go down a bit earlier, just you and me. Make sure the house is warm and everything. So Marion is comfortable.’
‘Yeah. If you like. I can’t miss the school social, though.’
‘No, no. You won’t miss anything.’
‘Mum?’
‘What?’
‘There’s something weird going on at the end house.’
‘How do you mean, weird?’
‘Well, you know Edie says there’s shouting and that?’
‘Oh, Edie exaggerates. She’s nervous, and she hasn’t much else to take up her attention.’
‘Yeah, but she’s right. There’s a mad guy lives there. Well, I think he looks mad. He’s got red curly hair, ginger. I could never fancy somebody with ginger hair, could you?’
‘What? I don’t know.’
‘You couldn’t!’
‘All right, I couldn’t.’
‘Anyway, he comes rushing out today—’
‘What? When?’
I’m coming up the lane, right, and it’s not totally dark, but it’s kind of nearly, you know, so I can see it’s him, and he’s yelling at somebody. Looking back at the house and yelling – at his wife, right, but I never saw her. Then he sees me coming up the lane and he stops, and you’d think he’d be embarrassed, wouldn’t you, but he just says, “Hi, how ya doing?” and—’
‘So did you speak to him?’
‘Well, I just go “fine” or something. That’s all, I never stopped. Then this woman comes out behind him – she’s mad as well, I think. She’s got her coat on, a long black coat and a hat, so I can’t see her face, right, and it’s nearly dark like I said. So she yells at him, and—’
Eleanor shook her head, smiling. ‘They sound a dramatic pair. What were they yelling about?’
‘Oh I don’t know – you wouldn’t, and Oh yes, I would, and stuff like that.’
‘Some couples do fight a lot, it doesn’t mean much.’
Claire shrugged this off. ‘You and Dad didn’t. Eilidh’s mum and dad don’t.’
‘No, but—’
‘Anyway, she never saw me, I don’t think. I’m going past Jim and Edie’s by this time, I mean, I wasn’t going to stop, was I? And suddenly she goes “By the time you get back, I’ll have gone, cleared out”.’
‘Goodness, is there a car there now? I didn’t notice.’
‘No, that’s what I was doing upstairs. Well, for a while. Then I did my biology homework.’
‘What – you were watching them?’
‘There wasn’t really anything to see after that. And it was dark. He drove away, he never even had a jacket on. Then she comes out right after, and she puts a lot of suitcases and stuff in the other car, the red one.’
Eleanor went to the front door and looked along the lane. The only light came from Jim and Edie’s living room window. Then Edie must have drawn the curtains, for that went dim.
‘No cars,’ Eleanor said, stepping backwards onto Claire, who had followed her.
‘See? She’s left him. Exciting, eh?’
‘Well.’
‘I wonder if she’ll come back?’
‘Oh probably. Just a quarrel.’
‘Did you quarrel with Dad? Not like that, did you, I don’t remember that. Shouting and stuff.’
‘No. We argued of course. Everyone does.’
Eleanor went back to stoke up the fire, now it had caught. Claire followed, as if wanting to go on talking, but instead she pulled her magazine from between the sofa cushions and took it upstairs to read. Eleanor sat down. She was remembering Ian’s cold silence, her own frustrated sobs. No quarrelling, though. You couldn’t quarrel with someone who remained silent and disapproving, who made it clear you were wrong and he was right.
‘Well, he was,’ she said aloud. He was always right. Stop it, she told herself. Stop thinking about it. It would be Hogmanay soon, and she always thought about it at this time of year. What was the sense in brooding about it now. There were more important things to think about – Marion, and what David was going to do, and Pitcairn. And Christmas.
From the kitchen, David called: ‘Grub’s up!’ So she rose and went to call Claire.