Chapter 9
We went back to the cellar where the dog was still cowering in a corner.
When David turned up carrying Kaylinn’s bag filled with cheeses, fresh bread, a lump of unidentifiable but delicious-smelling meat and the inevitable turnip stew in the flask, I was sitting alone at the table.
The men had gone off to recruit Kaylinn to work out what I should wear and how I should behave when I made my appearance as a Woman of the Night in front of the earl.
It was ridiculous, bordering on insanity, but it was giving everyone something to do, and having a purpose helped.
Their absence also meant that David and I got to have a decent meal, and the dog got the meat leftovers.
‘I can get more, easily,’ David explained, smearing the soft cheese on the bread. ‘Nobody really seems to pay much attention to anything. They’re all busy tearing around. The earl keeps sending down new orders for what to prepare – it’s like Downton Abbey with a really tetchy and indecisive lord.’
‘You sound almost as though you’re enjoying this.’ I spread some of the gritty bread with the soft cheese. It was sharp and smelled strongly of cow but I wasn’t going to let that put me off.
David looked at me. His lean face was tanned, which made his eyes look very blue. ‘I like it here. I can breathe.’ He turned his gaze away and peeled some strips of meat from the bone with his fingertips. ‘Back home I’m a carer for my sister.’ The words were clipped and almost devoid of emotion.
‘That must be—’
He interrupted. ‘No. You have no idea what it “must be”. I’m sorry, Pax, but nobody has any idea.
I shouldn’t even be on this dig, only she was offered respite care so I took the chance…
’ He stared at the stringy meat, flipping it across his fingers as though uncertain as to what to do with it.
‘I finished my degree and wanted to go on to a masters, only Amber took a turn and I had to…’ Another break.
I heard him swallow. ‘Yeah. But I do a lot of reading, there’s a lot of sitting about and monitoring and stuff, so I have time to keep myself up to date on new findings.
And I enjoy Scottish history. Much more interesting than English history – more battles.
’ He sighed. ‘But Amber needs me, so yeah. I’m domesticated.
’ A bitter little smile. ‘And I’m enjoying it here because I don’t have to worry about the phone ringing, machines alarming out, someone telling me I’d better come.
And at the same time, I’m worried to death about what might be happening.
And guilty that I’m having a good time, while Amber is in some primary-coloured room with cartoons on the walls being fed by people she doesn’t know. ’
I let his words settle. Anything I replied with was going to sound trite and dismissive, so I waited until we’d eaten more of the sour cheese and the harsh bread before I said, ‘I’m sorry.’
He shrugged.
‘And you’re right, you shouldn’t be getting the domestic jobs by default. I’ll have a word with Lachlan.’
Another bitter smile. ‘No, you’re fine,’ David said tiredly.
‘It’s okay. I cook and clean for Amber, so it’s what I’m used to.
Besides—’ he gave me a direct look ‘—it makes me feel useful. Like there’s some purpose to my being here.
Everyone else seems to be – I dunno. Lachlan is trying to work out why we’re here, Kay is using it as a study opportunity.
Mal is – Mal is probably working out a way to take over the castle and open the eighteenth century’s first nightclub or something.
Everyone seems to have a reason. So I’m making cooking mine.
And at least here people can show that they’re grateful.
’ A moment’s thought. ‘Most of them. Usually.’
I didn’t point out that I had no purpose either.
We ate and chatted lightly after that and I told him about teaching chemistry to reluctant learners, living a dull life ruled by work hours and, until recently, Jack’s intermittent desire to be a party animal.
As we talked, I began to realise why I’d gone along with Lenny’s suggestion of buying what was left of Dunaire Castle: that little spark of rebellion, that wish to show that I could break out of routine and drudgery.
I didn’t tell David about the tiny background hint of blackmail, of buying Lenny’s approval, of my own overarching guilt.
I hadn’t even admitted that to myself. I’d convinced myself that I’d gone in with Lenny on buying the castle to show Jack that I was more than the boring nine-to-five worker – I’d had an ironic laugh to myself at that accusation, teaching being anything but nine to five – he’d taken me for.
I could help restore a castle! I could run a hotel!
I could fall into penury while the bank-loan repayments absorbed any spare money, the castle continued to crumble and I worked myself to a shadow, more like.
My thoughts skittered away from the feeling of obligation, the desire to atone.
That feeling was purely mine, something I wallowed in when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself and, while it might have been behind my decision to take the bank loan, I’d rationalised myself into thinking it was a sensible decision.
If Jack hadn’t told me I was too dull I probably wouldn’t have listened to Lenny and taken out that loan.
If Jack hadn’t left me anyway I wouldn’t have come up here to ‘help’ Lenny look over our newly acquired site.
I could have been lying on the sofa in my tiny flat, listening to my neighbour’s TV and trying to mark the end-of-term tests for a hundred and fifty Year Tens.
Instead, I was sitting in a cellar in the eighteenth century eating bread and salty meat.
I carefully avoided thinking about the pertinent part of that sentence. Things could be worse. My mind scuttered across the words in the eighteenth century like a beetle over grass. We were here. We’d come by some unknown method, surely we would go back the same way. Surely.
David cleared the plates, worked out storage for the remaining food and tidied the cellar while I tried to make friends with the dog.
Once it worked out that it literally couldn’t bite me and that I had meat scraps about my person, it calmed down a lot.
It seemed to be able to sense where I was – which might, I had to consider, be more down to the smell of meat I carried – even if it couldn’t actually see me, and eventually sat down next to me, although my inability to stroke its ears was frustrating for us both.
I tried not to think about what David had told me. His life and Lachlan’s, even Mal’s with its echoing loneliness, didn’t sound like things to hurry back for. And mine?
No. I didn’t want to think about it.
When Lachlan, Mal and Kaylinn turned up looking bulky, the dog got up and growled again.
‘We’ve got to get him out of here,’ I said. ‘Someone must be missing him. Besides, he pees on things.’
‘There’s about forty thousand dogs up there.’ Mal lifted his university sweatshirt and dumped a roll of cloth from underneath it onto the table. ‘And they’re all identical. I doubt anyone has even noticed he’s gone.’
The dog lifted a lip at Mal, hunched its back and looked as though it would have attacked him, had it been able to work out where to actually attack.
‘Go on,’ Mal said, offhanded. ‘Give it a shot.’
Kaylinn began to laugh. ‘They were leading the goat somewhere while we were walking through and it was fighting real bad to get at Mal.’
‘Hilarious,’ he said dryly.
‘Kaylinn has got you a skirt.’ Lachlan waved a hand and Kaylinn pulled what looked like several metres of curtain fabric from under her jacket. ‘And we’ve got some loose cloth for you to wrap over your head like the women do.’
‘And an apron. Because you need to look like a worker,’ Kaylinn added. ‘We couldn’t get any shoes, but you’ll be barefoot anyhow.’
‘Can I keep my knickers on?’ I asked acidly as they all held various bits and pieces up against me as though measuring me for size.
‘Unless he gets frisky,’ Mal said, draping cloth around my shoulders. ‘Suits you. You’re definitely an “Autumn”.’
I sighed. Sighing seemed to be a feature of most conversations with Mal. ‘Okay, then. Let’s do this.’
We waited until it was completely dark, Lachlan’s thinking being that if I was semi-visible to the earl this might be less noticeable by candlelight.
I wore a shift under a skirt, with the top of the shift forming a ruffled blouse-effect, and an apron, with a length of woven cloth covering my head and shoulders.
The shift was too big and smelled of someone else’s sweat and the cloth that disguised my short hair was coarse and a bit itchy.
‘You have to look convincing,’ Kaylinn said. ‘If he can see you or half see you, you need to look like any of the other women here.’
‘And the hair is a giveaway,’ Mal put in. ‘No luscious locks for you.’
‘But does it have to be so… so… authentic?’ I asked, scratching at the back of my neck. ‘There are things in here with me.’
‘Well, if he can see you, you gotta look real.’ Kaylinn pulled at the skirt, tweaking the hem, which pulled the ruffles down to a less suffocating position.
‘Real I can cope with. Fleas I draw the line at.’ I scratched again.
‘We’ll have to go up the outside stairs,’ David said. ‘They’re bringing stuff up and down the ones from the hall and we don’t want to get knocked down like Weebles if anyone drops a barrel.’
‘Come on.’ Lachlan opened the cellar door. ‘We might as well find out now.’ Then, as I went to go past him, ‘You look great, Pax.’
‘Thank—’
‘A proper peasant.’
‘Oh.’
His smile was very broad in the moonlight that filtered down into the cellar from above. ‘In a good way,’ he added, encouragingly.
‘Is there a good way?’
I got an assessing look, another smile and a nod. ‘My ancestry says yes.’