Girl on the Landing

by Paul Torday

  ‘My name’s Robinson,’ he said. ‘Some people might I say I was descended from a Polish Jew, and that my name means “Rabbi’s son”.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘I might be. Gascoigne means you come from south-west France. You might well be more of a Gascon than you are an Englishman, whatever that means. Few of us know who we really are.’

  ‘Well, of course I’ll put him in the book,’ I said. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘This place needs waking up,’ said Peter. ‘Otherwise members such as myself, much as we love the place, are going to start resigning.’

  Before I could think of an adequate reply Peter stood up, and patted me on the shoulder.

  ‘I never got round to hearing about your golfing trip in Ireland, old boy. I’ll have to leave it to another time. It doesn’t seem to have done you much good. You look peaky.’

  Then he left, and a moment or two later I stood up and went over to the membership book, which sat on a table near the door. In the column marked ‘Candidate’s Name’ I wrote ‘Mr V. Patel’ and in the column marked ‘Introduced By’ I wrote Peter’s name. The last column left space for the minimum requirement of six signatures of men who had been members for at least five years. Then Mr Patel would become a member of Grouchers - unless someone put a black ball in the box.

  The last candidate for membership to be blackballed had been a cashiered former major in the Royal Artillery whose application to join had nearly succeeded, until the story about his misappropriation of mess funds had been circulated. That was in the 1980s, and on the day of his election a single black ball had been placed in the box. His application had thus been unsuccessful, and the member who had proposed him had felt compelled to resign.

  I went back to the office and began dealing with some correspondence about preferential rates for Welsh and Scottish members. The argument being advanced was that, as they used the club less often, being farther away, they should pay lower subscriptions. English members were objecting, saying that this meant they were subsidising, for no good reason they could see, the Welsh and Scottish members. It was the sort of argument Grouchers excelled at: incapable of ever being resolved to everyone’s, or indeed anyone’s, satisfaction and likely to rumble on for at least the next generation while filling up several filing cabinets’ worth of correspondence. Verey-Jones’s own comment summed up the dilemma.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, as he handed me the latest file of members’ letters on the subject, ‘I have Welsh ancestry and a London address. So the question is one about which I find I am peculiarly sensitive.’

  I resisted pointing out to him that I had a Scottish address. My sensitivities were obviously not considered to be in the same league as his.

  At about four o’clock I decided I had had enough. Verey-Jones was doing the monthly stocktake in the cellar, so I straightened all the letters and papers on my desk, told Mrs Thornton that I would be back in the morning, put my newspaper in my briefcase, and went out past the porter’s lodge.

  ‘Mr Gascoigne, sir?’ said James, as I passed. ‘There’s a lady waiting outside to see you, sir.’

  ‘Is it Mrs Gascoigne?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘No, Mr Gascoigne. The lady has been waiting since two o’clock.’

  ‘Why wasn’t I told?’ I asked in amazement.

  ‘She didn’t want to disturb you, Mr Gascoigne.’

  This was awful. Some poor woman had been waiting outside to see me for two hours. What on earth could it be about?

  ‘It’s an Indian lady, sir.’

  James could barely conceal a smirk. I knew no Indian ladies. There could only be one possible explanation, bizarre as it might seem.

  ‘You should have told me anyway, James,’ I said angrily, and strode outside. A small, attractive woman in a sari was standing at the foot of the club steps. She was not tall, but stood very upright, and wore a sari of dark green flecked with red. Her long dark hair fell to her shoulders. Her eyes had beautiful dark brown irises, surrounded by a white so white it looked almost blue. Her face was heart shaped, and olive skinned.

  ‘Mr Gascoigne, sir?’ she asked. It occurred to me that she must have been asking everyone who left the club since two o’clock the same question. That meant that half the club would know about this.

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ I said.

  ‘I am Mrs Patel,’ she said. She was clutching a small parcel in her left hand and did not put out her right. I did not know whether I should offer to shake hands with her or not. I made a slight bow instead.

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ I said. ‘I have just been hearing about your husband from Mr Robinson.’

  ‘It would mean so much to Mr Patel to be a member of this club,’ said Mrs Patel suddenly. ‘His father would have been so proud. Please, please, Mr Gascoigne. You are a person of great influence, I know. Do your best for him, I ask you this favour.’

  I started to mutter something about how it was up to the members, but she was not listening. She had said what she had come from Hertfordshire to say. Instead she thrust the small parcel into my hand.

  ‘This is burfi. It is an Indian sweet, most delicious, with silver almonds. Please take this gift from me.’

  I had no choice but to accept the parcel. Then she turned, and walked off with surprising speed. I looked down at the silver foil and sniffed: an odour of boiled milk came from it. When I looked up, Mrs Patel had gone.

  That evening, as Elizabeth and I sat in the Italian restaurant around the corner from Helmsdale Mansions, I told her about Mr Patel. She was not amused.

  ‘You men at Grouchers,’ she said. ‘You ought to be locked up. Half the House of Lords are Ugandan Asians these days, and you worry there’ll be a fuss if even one comes into your miserable club.’

  ‘How was your day, darling?’ I asked. Elizabeth’s tirades on the subject of Grouchers made me uncomfortable. Grouchers had become an important part of my world in recent years. It was my anchor, the rock upon which I stood. One needed a firm footing upon something solid. There were too many treacherous quicksands and strange currents in the world.

  ‘It was hell,’ said Elizabeth. ‘And, to cap it all, Christine’s pregnant.’

  I was going to ask who Christine was but remembered just in time that she had been Elizabeth’s PA for the last three years.

  ‘She’ll want maternity leave, of course, and then I’ll have to put up with temps for God knows how long until she decides whether or not she wants her job back.’

  ‘I’m going to ask Peter and Mary up to Caorrun to stalk and play golf next month,’ I said to Elizabeth. ‘I’d like you to be there. Can you get some time off?’

  I knew she would be able to. Although Elizabeth complained endlessly about her job, she seemed to be able to extract a remarkable amount of free time from her employers.

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘You can ask Anna and David Martin as well, if you like,’ I said. Anna was Elizabeth’s new friend. Her husband, David, was another member of Grouchers, one I knew rather less well than Peter. But the Martins would help make up a party; I didn’t care, as long as Elizabeth would be entertained, and would overlook the deficiencies of Beinn Caorrun for a few days. I just needed to get away from London. I wasn’t feeling myself at present.

  We finished our pasta and decided to have coffee back at home, so I paid the bill and we walked back to Helmsdale Mansions. Elizabeth’s mood had mellowed after a couple of glasses of wine. I had drunk nothing with dinner, but decided that I would have a malt whisky as a nightcap. Then I remembered the burfi, that Mrs Patel had given me. Bribe or not, it might as well be eaten.

  ‘I’ve got a treat for you,’ I told Elizabeth, and told her the story about Mrs Patel, and her strange offering.

  ‘How very peculiar,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I don’t normally like Indian sweetmeats. I find them sickly.’

  ‘Those are the ones you get in restaurants,’ I said. ‘This is home-made. I bet it will be delic
ious.’

  But when we got back to the flat I could find no trace of the little package in silver foil. I looked everywhere, in the kitchen, even in the bin, in case I had absent-mindedly thrown it out, but it was nowhere.

  ‘You must have dropped it on the way home,’ suggested Elizabeth.

  ‘I could have sworn I put it down on the hall table,’ I said.

  ‘You’re becoming very odd, darling,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Perhaps you ought to see someone about it.’

  I went and poured myself a large whisky, and turned on the ten o’clock news. I was growing tired of people telling me I wasn’t myself.

  In the middle of the night I awoke and sat bolt upright. The bedroom curtains stirred in a soft breeze that was blowing in from somewhere. Something had awoken me, I thought at first; something like a whisper. Then into my mind came the words that had been in my dream, a dream in which the wind made the green tops of the trees bend before it, and in which bright red berries glinted.

  Few of us know who we really are.

  Somehow this thought made me feel profoundly uneasy and excited at the same time. Where had the words come from? I lay awake thinking about them. Where did one’s sense of self come from: was it one’s upbringing, or genetics, or from belonging to a club like Grouchers? I felt there was an answer out there, not far away, in the darkness. It was almost as if I could reach out and touch it. Then I remembered that those were the words Peter Robinson had used at lunchtime the previous day, when we were talking about Mr Patel. At once I was calmer, and settled back on my pillows, feeling sleep returning. Elizabeth slept soundlessly and deeply beside me. As I fell asleep the whisper returned.

  None of us knows who we really are. None of us knows who we really are.

  The next morning, before lunch, I went into Grouchers’ bar and ordered myself a dry sherry. Someone touched me on the arm as I took it from Pierre, the barman, and I turned to see Peter Robinson. Beside him stood a tall, good-looking, dark-skinned man with jet-black hair brushed back from his forehead. He smiled at me, waiting to be introduced.

  ‘Michael, this is Vijay Patel,’ said Peter. ‘I thought I’d let him see for himself what Grouchers is like. Can you join us for lunch?’

  ‘I’m Michael Gascoigne,’ I said, taking Mr Patel’s outstretched hand. ‘Delighted to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise,’ said Mr Patel. ‘This is a treat for me.’

  I could not really refuse the invitation, so I sat with Peter and Mr Patel at lunch. Mr Patel turned out to be everything Peter Robinson had said: urbane, intelligent, charming. At the same time, he looked slightly bewildered, as if he was not quite sure why he was there. I suspected that Peter had strong-armed him into applying for membership, as he had done in my case, as part of his campaign to make the club conform more with his own view of what it should be like.

  ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘please apologise to Mrs Patel. I’m afraid I lost the cake she very kindly gave me yesterday, and so never got the chance to taste it. Please thank her from me in any case. It was such a kind thought.’

  Vijay Patel put down his knife and fork and looked a little confused. He smiled uncertainly.

  ‘Cake? Mrs Patel?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand you correctly.’

  ‘Burfi, it was called, I believe,’ I said, remembering what Mrs Patel had told me.

  ‘Yes, burfi is a well-known Indian sweetmeat. Most delicious. But who is this Mrs Patel, please?’

  Now it was my turn to feel confused.

  ‘Mrs Patel? I assumed she was your wife?’

  Peter said, in a tactful voice, ‘Vijay is not married.’

  ‘Not yet, I’m afraid,’ said Vijay Patel. He laughed, but still sounded uncertain.

  ‘Your sister?’ The lady I had seen was too young to be the mother of this man.

  ‘I have no female relations in this country,’ said Vijay Patel. ‘All boys in our family, you know. Now who could you have met? It is beyond me to explain it, Mr Gascoigne.’

  Now I was more than confused; I was embarrassed. I felt myself beginning to colour.

  Peter said, ‘Why don’t we go next door and have a cup of coffee?’

  ‘I’d love to join you,’ I replied, ‘but I really must get back to my desk. So nice to have met you, Mr Patel. I look forward to seeing you here again soon.’

  I stood up, and so did Vijay Patel, and we shook hands. Then they went into the morning room, and I went to the porter’s lodge to find James.

  ‘James,’ I began, ‘do you remember that Indian lady who came to see me yesterday afternoon?’

  James looked at me in surprise.

  ‘Indian lady?’ he asked. ‘I’m sorry, sir. Are you sure? There were no ladies here yesterday, except Mrs Thornton.’

  4

  The Hill of the Rowan Trees

  I love Beinn Caorrun. The name means ‘the hill of the rowan trees’ and the place and I are indivisible. When I drive up north, up the A9, and then turn off on to the long, steep-sided valley that leads to my other home, my real home, my heart leaps within me. Everything is different up here. The quality of the light is different, and it changes all the time. One moment it is as dark as night, the next, soft white clouds fill a sky of limpid blue.

  The air is different, too. As I drive along the valley road, a single-track affair with passing places, I always open my window unless it is snowing. Then I hear the stony voice of the Gala as it rushes down towards its junction with the Tay. I smell the air and the fresh coolness of it always hits the back of my throat, then travels to the very base of my lungs, filling me with a sense of being connected to the world again, no matter how grey and weary everything might have seemed when I left London.

  The shoulder and then the grey and green ramparts of Beinn Caorrun begin to appear, as the road crests an incline and enters a hanging valley. High up on the hillside are fields of stone and the occasional white dot of a sheep. Lower down its slopes the forest begins. Dark woods now rise above each bank of the Gala and I drive through them: twisted alder, fir, Caledonian pine, birch, rowan and larch. The woods are full of mossy stones and fallen branches from the understorey of the trees, lying here and there like discarded spears. By this time of the year, the colours in the wood are turning to gold and brown, and the clusters of red and yellow berries on the rowans catch the eye. It is years since anyone bothered to manage these woods and the timber no longer has any value. At the two white-painted stones that form the drive entrance, I turn gently uphill and drive for a mile along the track covered in pine needles, winding between the tangled wood and green-covered boulders, until the house comes into view.

  Caorrun is where I was brought up. This glen, these woods, these hills, bounded my world for many years. I went to school at the Bridge of Gala as a child. For most of my life I have spent more time here than anywhere else. When I come home, I can feel the life of the place flowing back into me as if I was bloodless before, but am now being infused with life. The noise of the Gala and the wind in the trees speak to me in many different voices.

  Caorrun Lodge sits on a shelf of land, slightly raised above the surrounding forest. Around the main house and its two attendant cottages are great banks of rhododendrons. My grandfather, like many of our branch of the Gascoignes before him, had been an eccentric loner: his particular obsession was collecting species of rhododendrons. He once went to China before the Second World War, to Yunnan, to collect seeds. The idea was to have a display of plants that flowered right through from January to August, but what you see these days is mostly Ponticum, the common woodland rhododendron that has by now smothered all the plants my grandfather collected. For a few weeks in June and July the sombre dark green plantations are bright with purple flowers, and then their moment of glory is over.

  Beyond the lodge is the stalker’s cottage and a second cottage where Mrs McLeish lives. Mrs McLeish comes in and looks after the house while I am away and does the bookkeeping and administration for the holiday cottag
e rentals. The house itself could not be called beautiful. Built from dark stone, and three storeys high, it has an air of neglect about it The lawns around it are always shaggy with moss and are strimmed once a month by Donald the stalker; the window frames should have been repainted years ago and are now beginning to rot; the gutters need cleaning out, and the stonework of the house is covered in dark stains and green moss where the gutters have overflowed. Why people ever built houses that cannot be looked after without a cherry picker or a sixty-foot ladder is beyond me. I know I really must do something about it before the house gets dry rot. It would stink of damp, except that I leave every window in the place open to keep the air moving. The truth is, the house is exactly as it was when my father disappeared on the hill years ago. He was out hind-stalking by himself and got caught in a fierce January blizzard that blew in from the Arctic on a sudden north-westerly wind. Somehow, although reason tells me that he has been dead for over ten years, I have always been expecting him to come back. I want him to find the house as he left it, I suppose.