Chapter 4
The Hillfoots Road is quiet on this school-day mid-morning, and I let my gaze take in the sheep in the fields, lambs getting more sturdy and less playful, settling into their life of eating. Then I turn my eyes away from the low land and look up.
Other people say the Ochils loom over the Hillfoot villages strung out along their base but, on my one trip to Lincolnshire, the flatness unnerved me, and I was instantly happy in Kai’s family home, under the black gaze of the big volcano. Hills are comfort if you grew up with them.
Comfort. It’s a horrible word for a beautiful thing, the opposite of effluvia. Comfortable is even worse, full of lumps. That’s why people say comfy instead.
I ache for Kai. John and Shelley would be embarrassed if I went banging on about the sounds of words and their meaning.
I suddenly feel sure that Mrs. . . . won’t mind it one bit and I find myself looking forward even more to seeing her again.
I wonder if she’s ever been to Hawaii. I assume not, since she didn’t say so.
Maybe I’ll tell her about the smell of flowers on the breeze.
I could try, because she won’t mind if it makes me break down sobbing.
She’s seen too much in her long life to be bothered by a few tears.
And she’ll show me that women like us can be okay on our own.
Not, I tell myself as I slalom down the side of the hill into Bridge of Allan, that I’ll be on my own. I was born here. I grew up here, went to school here, came back home here from uni most weekends once the term’s money had run out. I know people all over the place.
It’s a complete whim when I stop in the middle of BofA, mostly because I’ve seen an empty parking space right outside a property centre with a name I know from online listings, but when I open the door I reckon I’ve proved my own point.
In the front office, there’s a man in a farmer’s tie and a windowpane-checked shirt leaning over the receptionist’s shoulders looking at something on her computer and I recognise him.
“Hiya,” I say.
Both the receptionist and the leaning man look at me with polite smiles.
“Sorry,” I say. “Lindsay Hale.” It’s clear to them both that I’m talking to him, so she goes back to her screen.
His smile is starting to look fixed and his eyes are blank.
“Lindsay Lord?” I try next. His smile is completely gone now.
He even takes a step backwards, as if—ludicrous as this would be—I’m trying that old haven’t-seen-you-for-years chat-up line, on a Wednesday morning in an estate agent’s instead of half eleven in a nightclub.
“Sorry,” I say again. “I could have sworn we knew each other. Maybe at school?” Damn it, that’s the follow-up line.
“He’s got one of those faces,” the receptionist murmurs with her eyebrows raised.
I can feel my face warming, because she’s right.
He looks like a Perthshire farmer from central casting: ruddy cheeks; crisp, fair hair thinning in its sensible cut; the start of a beer gut under that shirt that he probably bought in a men’s outfitters that sells a lot of Barbour jackets too.
I glance down, and he’s wearing brogues the colour of conkers.
“And what can me and my face do for you?” says Farmer George. “I’m Robert Walker, by the way.” He comes forward with a hearty handshake, and I try to ignore how I’m even more sure we know each other.
“It’s probably just that your photo’s on your website,” I say to him. “I’ve been keeping up with the listings.” I know my voice dries out before the end of this.
“Are you okay?” the receptionist says.
I tell her I’m fine, and I tell myself it’s nice to be home where everything’s so familiar, but at the edge of my vision I can see the display window starting to flatten and wave around as if a breeze is blowing it.
“Let me make you a nice hot drink,” the receptionist says. “I’ll bring it in, Bob.”
So Farmer George has got no choice but to usher me into his office for an impromptu meeting. Over a cup of bad coffee, I tell him I’m back from Hawaii, need a house, want a nice house, can pay for a lovely house, and am willing to rent till the right one comes up.
“Trouble with the rental market these days,” he says, at last, “is Airbnb. If you wanted a weekend, you’d be laughing. Six months on a lease, though?” He shakes his head and sucks his breath in over his teeth.
“What’s the longest you can rent an Airbnb for?” I ask him, not quite joking.
“Where are you right now?” he asks. “Believe me, you don’t want to stay anywhere that hasn’t got bookings in place for the summer by this time in June.”
“I’m bunking with my family,” I say. “And they’ve been lovely. They’ve both said I can stay as long as I like, but I’m not daft.”
He’s nodding so hard he looks as if he can hear rock music. “Let them be there for you,” he says. “We all need our families at a time like this.”
Time like what? I think. Then I realise he’s probably assuming I’m newly divorced. It’s more likely at my age, and why else would someone leave Hawaii?
“You’re right there,” I tell him. “I’m a widow.”
His face falls like a dropped pudding. Those cheery, ruddy farmer faces aren’t made for dismay. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing emerges.
“Don’t feel bad about guessing I wasn’t okay,” I tell him. “I don’t mind. I wish we still did armbands, to tell the truth.”
“There you are then,” says Farmer George. “I reckon if your brother and sister-in-law are happy helping you, you should be letting them.”
I stare at him. “Did I actually mention my brother?” I try to focus on his face, scared that if I look around, the room will be curling up at the edges.
“Lord, you said,” he comes back with. “Lord’s Yard?
Your brother owns it, and his wife lives there too.
” He’s staring me down, really trying to make me think that was a normal thing to say.
I hold his gaze for a minute, but then I lower my eyes.
It’s me that’s not normal. Where do I get off looking sideways at this guy?
I thank him and leave as quickly as I can get out of there without actually trotting.
Jet lag, I tell myself. It doesn’t feel like jet lag. Grief, I tell myself. It doesn’t feel like grief either. So, I reason, this is what grief and jet lag feel like together. Who knew?
I drive on past birch trees with their young leaves fluttering green and silver like sequins as the breeze moves them, past the monument on its hill, past the park with the stately villas looking over it, and scoot over the motorway to the Dunblane road.
This town’s changed since I used to know it, now that I’m paying attention.
There’s a pet grocer and a Turkish barber, but there are cobbles still and kids in bright-blue blazers with bright-blue futures.
I turn into the road of hedges and high trees and roll along it, slowing down when I’m close to Saint .
. . whatever it was. I’m not sure whether I can just drive through the gates onto the gravel or if I should park on the road and walk in.
If it was me, I’d rather have the sound of a car than a knock out of nowhere, but Mrs. .
. . comes from a time when people at your door was normal.
It looks different today, I think as I pace towards it. The front door is shut over the vestibule, so maybe she’s out. And she must be out for the whole day, or away on a trip, because it was open when she’d only popped to the postbox.
The closer I get, the more sure I am that she’s off on her holidays or something.
The house looks cold and dead, somehow. Or maybe it’s just that I can’t see anything inside the front windows, not even an edge of curtain or frond of fern.
It looks neglected. I ring the bell and knock the knocker, but I’m unsurprised when she doesn’t answer.
As I step away, I can’t help glancing in the nearest bay window. My feet still. The room is completely empty. There are no curtains to see an edge of, and no carpet, no sofas or chairs, nothing on the mantelpiece and only paler squares on the wallpaper to show where pictures used to be.
Maybe, I think, she’s having it decorated.
I cross the step and look in the window on the other side but it’s the same story: bare boards and a gaping fireplace with not so much as a wire screen across it.
Poor old lady. She must have sold some of her furniture.
No wonder she had me sit in a back room.
I trot round the side, then stop dead, staring in through the French window at where we sat.
It’s stripped and dusty beyond the naked panes: no armchairs, no telly on a trolley, no brass table with wooden legs, nothing.
I stumble to the kitchen window instead, desperate to see the jumble of gathered treasures.
There’s nothing but empty shelves and scuffed floorboards.
I let my head fall against the glass. I can feel all the same old helplessness, like when Kai was sinking for the last time, after his final rally, a time when the world seemed to be upending itself to tip him out of it as quick as he could go.
I am so angry at myself for looking forward to coming here.
And I’m angry at her for playacting a future when she was on her last legs.
All those lies about staying forever! She knew what I’ve been through.
How dare she use me for a fantasy? The rage courses through me on channels slick and deep from wear, unreasoning rage, honed sharp.
Such a habit now. So efficient at consuming me:
Why did she lie to me? I bellow at her.
Why couldn’t she just have left me at the pillar box? I demand to know.
Well, look where all her big plans got her! I sneer.
And then the anger is gone as quick as it came, leaving me sick with shame. “I’m sorry, Peggy,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean it.”
And anyway, I tell myself, I missed thirty hours.
I couldn’t find my way to Menstrie from the airport.
I keep seeing things not the way they really are.
So how sure am I that I was actually here two afternoons ago?
That the house was occupied and I got invited for tea?
By a total stranger who let me fall asleep for hours? It doesn’t seem that likely.
I turn away and trail back down the drive, where I find an old man, in his eighties at least but dressed even older than that in his smart clothes, waiting by my car.
“You’re quick off your blocks!” he says. “It’s not even on the market yet.”
“I’m not,” I assure him. “I’m a friend.” I’m pretty sure this is true.
“Some friend, that thinks she’s still here!” he says.
So there was a “she”! That’s something. “She didn’t tell me,” I say.
“How could she? She didn’t know herself.”
“It must have been very sudden,” I say.
“She’s not dead,” he snaps. “As you would know, if you actually had any connection to Mrs. March.” Mrs. March.
That’s it! Peggy March. I didn’t imagine her.
And she’s still alive. Then he sags a little, sadness taking over him.
“She just got sick of looking after this big old place all on her own. Moved to a nursing home. Not that a complete stranger needs to know that.”
“Are you—?” Sure, I was going to say, but he cuts me off.
“You’re asking me who I am.”
“No, it’s just—”
“Tell the truth,” he thunders at me. “You’ve never met Peggy March in your life, have you?”
“I-I-I don’t know,” I say, hounded into honesty. “I know her name.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve found out her name. But listen to me, young lady, I’m a resident and a Neighbourhood Watch member. So don’t bother telling the rest of your gang that there’s rich pickings. The house is cleared and I’m always on duty.”
He’s as good as his word. He stands watching me until I’ve started the car and driven round the corner to park again.
I don’t know whether it’s leftover anger, another fresh bout of grief, the scolding I just got, or the fear of not knowing what’s real but when I call Chloe, it’s with shaking hands.