Miss Pink at the Edge of the World

by Gwen Moffat

  “I’m thinking of Bridget,” Leila said.

  Miss Pink, regarding the cormorants on the table blocks, wondered if this were the whole truth. After a while she got up to examine the rock pools.

  Hector returned and they embarked, making for the open sea in silence. The climbers were sitting on the landward side of the channel, watching the boat. Stark lifted his hand to them languidly. Above the mouth of the great cave, past the guillemot ledges, two people were sitting on the cliff top. A third stood behind them and under his arm he cradled something which could only be a gun. Miss Pink raised the binoculars.

  “Sadie, Ian and Clive,” she said.

  Leila lifted her head with a strange expression: relief and pleasure giving way to trepidation. She waved, but not gaily. The figure with the gun gave an answering wave.

  The scarlet slings hung down the slab on the Old Man. Every detail was clear: the pale alloy snap links, the knots in the tape; they could even see the piton, or rather, the head of it, in a crack.

  *

  “They’d have had to cool their heels for a while if Hector hadn’t ferried them across the channel,” Clive remarked mischievously. “Odd, that they don’t like swimming.” He smiled slyly. “Perhaps they thought the killers were lying in wait.”

  He was sitting with Miss Pink in the bay window of the drawing room. The sun was setting and a scintillating path stretched across the sea, so bright it was colourless. From upstairs came the faint strains of Callas and the Easter Hymn where Marcus and Bridget were listening to records. Clive had arrived on the cliff top when the climbers were descending to the plinth, so he hadn’t seen the slings placed in position. They discussed the possible import of this but could arrive at no conclusion. The conversation flagged, uncomfortably for Miss Pink who was preoccupied with the secret to which Clive was obviously not yet a party. She changed the subject.

  “Did you like the dog at Kinloch?”

  “We bought her,” he announced with satisfaction. “A nice little bitch. I’m hoping we shall breed from her.”

  He told her how difficult it was to train dogs capable of working on the cliffs without their driving the sheep over the edge.

  Marcus came in, complaining that Callas exhausted him. He was followed by Bridget who seemed subdued.

  At dinner the two younger women merely pecked at their food and Bridget was drinking heavily. Conversation was mainly between Miss Pink and her host. Even Marcus was inattentive. As she struggled to maintain some semblance of a civilised atmosphere, Miss Pink was increasingly aware of tension, and wondered how it would break. With the arrival of the cheese, Bridget abandoned any attempt at participation and sat staring at her plate and drinking wine as if it were water.

  Leila caught Miss Pink’s eye and they rose. As they left the room, Bridget said something to Marcus. He followed the other women to the drawing room and closed the door.

  “Brandy, Leila,” he pleaded: “While we wait.”

  “You’re working yourself up,” Miss Pink admonished.

  “I’ve been thinking: suppose he didn’t mean to pull her off the cliff? It could have been an accident.”

  “I wondered —” Leila began, but she was overborne by — Marcus.

  “Of course he meant it,” he growled.

  “Clive won’t let them stay, and they’ve left all their gear on the cliffs.”

  “They’ll just have to go and retrieve it.” He sounded vicious. He turned to Miss Pink and demanded with an effort: “Tell us about Italy, Mel. Do you know Perugia?”

  So they tried to talk about Italy and, with application, worked their way to a superficial state of mind where they could concentrate on travel then, predictably, they gravitated to the Alps. Half an hour passed before they were interrupted by Elspeth. Her glance went round the room.

  “Shall I bring coffee, Miss West? That climber’s at the back door: the dark one.”

  “Stark!” Leila got to her feet clumsily, spilling her brandy, but she didn’t notice it. Elspeth said: “I’ll bring a cloth,” and left.

  “What do we do?” Leila asked Miss Pink, but it was too late. Stark had anticipated his welcome again and he stood in the doorway. His eyes went to the spilled brandy, then to Leila’s face.

  “A waste,” he said softly.

  “Get out!” Marcus clenched his hands on the table as he rose from his chair.

  “Not in front of the menials.” Stark smiled and stood aside for Elspeth. “Am I welcome, Miss West?” he asked with studied insolence. Leila hesitated. She was very pale.

  “We’ll wait for coffee,” Miss Pink murmured to Elspeth and the woman went out, tight-lipped.

  “Think of the distance to St Albans if you turn me away,” Stark went on.

  “St Albans?” Leila whispered.

  He raised his eyebrows. “My home town.”

  The door was pushed open by Clive. “I want a word with you, Stark,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “In my study.” Clive stood aside, waiting for the man to precede him to the passage. Stark took a few paces into the room. “Go on,” he said pleasantly.

  “In private, Stark.”

  “Oh no. Let’s have it here.”

  “Very well,” Clive said tightly. He looked at the group by the window. “I apologise for this scene but it appears I have no choice.”

  “Don’t apologise,” Marcus told him. “You have three witnesses.”

  Stark turned an astonished face towards him.

  “I want you off this land immediately,” Clive went on.

  “Tonight?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You must be joking. There’s over fifty pounds’ worth of gear on those cliffs!”

  It was plain that Clive had forgotten this. He glanced at the others but received no help there. Miss Pink was frantically trying to resolve the legal aspect if he should insist on the climbers leaving all their gear behind. It wasn’t as if they were poachers whose guns could be confiscated.

  Clive came to a decision. “It’s low water at midday tomorrow; you can cross to the stack and dismantle that stuff, and bring up the fixed ropes as you come back. I’ll give you till two o’clock.”

  “That’s difficult.” Stark sounded troubled.

  “You’ll do it.”

  “I doubt it. You see, we have to go to Kinloch for repairs. We broke the piton hammer and we have to get it re-shafted. We can’t get the pitons out without it.”

  “Leave them.”

  “Well — they cost money . . . and we might have to put more in for safety, mightn’t we?” He was looking at the group in the window now. “Suppose we extend it to, say, four o’clock; you wouldn’t like to think you’d killed a man, would you? I mean, because you’d made him hurry, or, like making him dismantle three hundred feet of rope without the advantage of extra security. You’d feel sort of responsible: a kind of manslaughter. Not legally, of course,” he added quickly.

  Leila said: “Let them move their equipment, Clive. They’ve got to have the tools to do it.”

  Marcus stared at her. “I don’t see why a few pitons —”

  “If they agree to go as soon as they’ve finished?” Her voice rose dangerously.

  Clive frowned, watching her. Marcus started to say something, then stopped. In a tense silence Clive said heavily: “Four o’clock then.”

  “But why?” Stark asked.

  “We won’t discuss that.”

  “I think I should know.”

  “We all know, and I refuse to discuss it.”

  Stark shrugged but his eyes were furious. He turned and walked out.

  “Where’s Bridget?” Marcus asked quickly.

  “In her room,” Clive answered.

  Marcus left them and they heard him running up the stairs. Leila passed a hand over her face.

  “Now, my dear.” Clive put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t distress yourself. It’s all over.”

  Miss Pink started towards the door.
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br />   “Don’t go, Melinda,” he went on. “You’re a friend.”

  She turned back. “You handled that well,” she commented, for something to say more than anything else.

  “I hate scenes,” Leila said.

  “If I’d had my way he’d have been out of the glen tonight.” Clive was grim.

  “Fifty pounds’ worth of equipment was what worried me,” Leila said. “He’d want that. He might come back with friends — I mean, others like himself. Pincher and the girl seem harmless — not that I’ve met the girl. But if he takes his gear away we won’t see him again.”

  “You may be right. What do you think, Melinda?”

  “I think I agree with Leila. You’d be worried if the ropes were left on the cliff. He’d have an excuse to come back for them — and I don’t know the legal aspect.”

  “I’d happily go to court for that. Still, less trouble this way, I suppose. I’ll go up to the cliff with MacKenzie tomorrow and supervise the dismantling.” Leila looked startled. “Now don’t you worry, my dear,” he patted her hand. “We’ll take shot guns. That’ll show them we mean business!”

  Chapter Seven

  Miss Pink woke with a feeling of foreboding, which was most unusual for her. She drew her curtains and looked out on a calm sea. A stationary anti-cyclone, she thought.

  She went down to breakfast and found Leila in the kitchen. She looked haggard. Miss Pink suggested they walk to the northern headland and take a rope; they might even look at the Pagoda.

  “Leave it till tomorrow,” Leila begged. “I’m game for anything once they’ve gone.”

  Through the binoculars Miss Pink watched the white Mini leave the broch and start up the glen. There appeared to be three people in it. She told Leila, hoping that now her friend might be persuaded to relax but the other protested that she had too much work to do. Miss Pink, knowing that work as well as play can be a panacea in times of strain, said that she would potter along the shore until lunchtime.

  The cliffs on this, the north side of the bay, rose gradually so that for some distance one could scramble up and down, and traverse: exploring miniature coves now floored with wet sand and, farther along, flat rock platforms with pools under the start of the real cliffs. She found, and climbed, a short but easy chimney, the binoculars tucked carefully inside her jersey. At the top she sat down and looked back at Scamadale. After a moment she stiffened. A figure was labouring up the grass slope towards the House and, judging from the movements, it must be an old man. It could only be Murdo — and he was going too fast for his age. She lifted the glasses and saw that it was, indeed, MacLeod, but also within her vision there was Jessie at the corner of her croft, watching. Not watching her husband because then her back would have been towards Miss Pink. She was staring up the glen, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  She must be looking at the road but even through the glasses this appeared to be empty. An odd blur blocked the view and Miss Pink groped absently for a handkerchief. A biscuit-coloured cloud showed above the headwall. There was nothing wrong with the binoculars. It was smoke. The moor was on fire.

  *

  The crofting women stayed at the settlement to look after the sheep. Everyone else raced up the road in two cars — there was no twenty mile an hour limit now.

  The fire was between the big loch and the road and it had gained a good hold by the time they reached the moor. There was a strong east breeze up here and the flames crackled wickedly through the dead grass. They had brought beaters with them and Hector and Ian fought like tigers while the older people gritted their teeth and beat until their arms ached, but they couldn’t halt the fire. When Clive was sure of this he stopped them. They drifted together reluctantly.

  “It’ll burn out at the cliffs,” he said. “Please God.”

  “It can’t reach the settlement,” Ian assured him: “Not over the in-bye land.”

  “Oh, the houses are all right, but if it goes through the trees in the gully, it’ll reach the rough grazing. On the other hand, it’s damp in the trees, with spray from the falls. Will it cross the road, I wonder? If it does, it’ll go clear to Farrid Head. We’ll go down the side in the cars and try to stop it spreading.”

  On the north the big loch and its outlet confined the fire, and they managed by purposeful beating at its southern fringe, to keep the flames away from the road. Miss Pink thought of all the hundreds of nests there must be between them and the Head and continued to raise the heavy beater although her joints screamed in agony. So the fire was kept to an area between the road and the loch, and they could only pray that when it came to the band of cliffs it wouldn’t leap down them. The ledges were covered with dead vegetation.

  They stood in a line across the defile where the road made its first sensational plunge to the glen. They were trying to stop the flames going through the break in the cliffs. They could hear cattle bawling below them but the glen was hidden by a thick pall of smoke drifting seawards. Clive looked at Leila.

  “Will you go with Melinda and get those cattle down to the dunes: the beasts in Gartness? You’ve only got to open one gate — but see you stand back when they go through.”

  Miss Pink drove as fast as she dared down the hairpins. They came to a gate where cows were milling in the field beyond. Leila had to shout savagely to open the gate towards the animals but she succeeded and they streamed down the road, the calves trotting with their mothers.

  “There’s one missing,” Leila said. She’d been counting.

  They walked into the field. The smoke stayed in the upper air currents and they soon saw a white cow, standing rigid by a rock and lowing quietly.

  “Hell, she’s just calved,” Leila exclaimed. “Don’t come with me; you’re strange.”

  “But —”

  “I’m all right; she knows me. Go back to the car and do get inside it.”

  Miss Pink retreated reluctantly, looking over her shoulder. Leila walked up to the cow which stepped back a pace, tossing its head. The woman stooped and lifted a small wet calf to its feet. She pushed it against the rock, got her head underneath its belly and stood up, wearing it across her shoulders like a fur.

  Miss Pink opened the rear door of her car and sat in the driver’s seat with the engine running.

  “Mess on your upholstery,” Leila gasped, heaving her burden on the back seat and getting in after it. “I’ll clean it. Drive off before she punches your metalwork.”

  The calf gave a loud bawl and Miss Pink jerked away, the cow trotting behind.

  Mother and son were reunited on the dunes. The other women were there, alerted by the noisy approach of the cattle. They all stared up the glen but there was too much smoke to deduce the progress of the fire. Miss Pink and Leila started back.

  *

  By midday they knew they’d won. The cliffs had been the deciding factor and the moor above them had burned itself out. The crofters had gone down below the crags, between the waterfall and the road, on the alert to deal with any sporadic outbursts. The ledges had caught fire in places and shed wisps of smouldering grass but since there was a lot of scree below the cliffs the flames had never got a hold there. Clive and Ian had remained on the top, patrolling the hot fringe of the burned moor, making sure that no sparks flared to start a conflagration that might cross the road and sweep the southern half of the peninsula.

  It was several hours before they left the headwall. The women returned to the House first and, while Leila bathed, Bridget and Miss Pink started cutting sandwiches. They speculated on how far the fire would have travelled had it jumped the cliffs, on the number of nests in the glen and on the moor, and the depth to which soil might be sterilised by fire, but their thoughts were less objective. At length Bridget said: “It was Stark, you know.

  “I wondered.”

  “No one’s said so, but the fire must have started about the time their Mini went up.”

  “Nothing can be proved.”

  “No, but the Mini hasn’t come back.”
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  “You think they’ve gone for good, and abandoned their ropes after all?”

  “No. I spoke to Elspeth. She went down to the broch and they’ve left all their gear in the tent: stoves and a transistor and sleeping bags. They’ll be back.”

  They weren’t back by tea time when the fire fighters, tired and filthy, came home. They crowded into the kitchen where sandwiches, tea and whisky circulated freely. After half an hour Ian left with the crofters and Miss Pink sank exhausted onto a hard chair.

  “We should have you on the pay-roll,” Clive remarked kindly. “You’ve certainly earned your keep today.”

  “We didn’t save the moor,” she said sadly.

  “You saved the glen, and all the moor to Farrid Head,” he replied stoutly. “Without the chaps on the road and in the gap we’d have lost the rough grazing and — what? — over a thousand acres. But if the wind had backed only a few degrees we could have had sixteen square miles on fire.”

  “We think he meant to get the settlement,” Marcus said.

  Clive’s face set. He took a deep breath and his hand clutched his whisky glass. Miss Pink watched in alarm. Would it break?

  “As it was,” Marcus went on, “he could only hope to destroy the rough grazing. The fire wouldn’t have gone through the meadows because of the new grass but he wouldn’t know that. He’s a townsman; he’d not stop to think about the moisture content of grass. No, he’d expect the fire to go right down the glen to the shore.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Miss Pink protested.

  “Mel!” Marcus was sharp. “Have you never had an arsonist up before you? A chap who set fire to a hay barn when he knew there were people sleeping in the farmhouse?”

  She nodded acceptance. No one said anything. Leila filled their mugs with more tea. Clive broke the silence first.

  “I’ll go to court for those ropes now,” he told them flatly. “There may be no proof that he started the fire but I’ll move heaven and earth — and the county constabulary — to see that he never sets foot on this estate again.”

  Only Marcus dared to make the obvious observation. “He’s got to collect his tent and gear.”