A Double Death on the Black Isle

by A. D. Scott

  “It’s a sign of good luck, you know,” Annie pronounced.

  “It is that,” a passing crewman agreed.

  For some, thought Joanne. The dolphins cavorting in the pellucid waters of the firth reminded her of an incident a few years ago on a previous ferry crossing.

  “Look,” Bill, her husband, had said to Annie—Wee Jean was too small to enter his horizon—“porpoises.”

  “Actually,” Joanne had pointed out to Annie, “they are dolphins, bottle-nosed dolphins.”

  “You’re such a bloody know it all.” Bill had been furious, “Up here we call them porpoises.”

  Joanne shivered at the memory. I don’t blame him, she thought, I shouldn’t have contradicted him. I only wanted Annie to know the correct name. And there was no need for him to elbow me so hard in the ribs I could hardly get my breath.

  The ferry docked on the north side of the firth. There was no sign of Patricia. Joanne sighed—all that rush for nothing. The girls had run down to the foreshore and were busy trying to skim stones across the water.

  “Did you see that, Mum?” Annie called. “Mine did six skips.”

  Wee Jean was no good at the game, so she busied herself gathering seashells while Joanne meandered along the high-tide line.

  Memories of other holidays in the Black Isle returned as she crunched her feet over the bladder wrack, popping the dried seaweed pods. With her sister Elizabeth, they had rented adjoining caravans in the village of Rosemarkie some fifteen miles away. It had been a week of sun and freezing winds and morning haar with the foghorns blasting across the firth, shaking the thin, aluminum shells of the camper, which terrified the children when they first heard it. It had been a week of walking to the Fairy Glen, of roaming beneath the cliffs searching for fossils, of picnics in the sand dunes, and of grilling fish on fires made amongst the rocks on the foreshore.

  Of the rest of the Black Isle, the hidden north side, the dark forest covering the spine of the land, Joanne had only passed through, never explored. She thought this peninsula called an island was a mysterious place. Perhaps it is the history, Joanne thought, perhaps it is the standing stones, the fairy wells, the castles, the ruins.

  The persistent peep of a car horn made Joanne look around. A slightly battered Land Rover pulled up, and there was Patricia, waving.

  “All here, how wonderful! And all dressed up and ready to go. Jolly good.”

  The girls were suddenly shy at Patricia’s exuberant greetings. But the “jolly good” stuck in Annie’s mind, and many times over that bizarre weekend she would whisper “jolly good” in Jean’s ear, in the exact tone with the exact timing, then collapse in giggles at her own wit. Joanne, overhearing the joke, was hard-pressed not to giggle with them.

  “Thank you for the gift. You really shouldn’t have.”

  Joanne was embarrassed by the money her friend had sent. The envelope had been addressed to Miss Annie and Miss Jean Ross. Annie had pounced on it, read the card, and danced around, waving a postal order made out to her saying, “Look, Mum, for me. One for Jean too. All our own money.” It had taken a long argument to persuade Annie she couldn’t spend it all on books and to tell Jean, no she couldn’t have a new dolly.

  “The girls bought new coats and hats.”

  “Thank you, Aunty Patricia,” they chorused.

  “Sorry about the Land Rover, but it’s clean,” Patricia said as the girls piled into the back. “Mummy hates me using her car and refuses to buy me a car of my own. Probably a none-too-subtle hint that I should be off and married with a husband to provide for me.”

  They drove through the countryside and villages and rattled past the Ord Mackenzie family estate, only slowing as Patricia pointed out what was left of the Italianate mansion on a hillside facing the firth. When Joanne had last seen it, there was a deserted, but nonetheless magnificent mansion dominating the farmland, woodland, and hillside. A staircase to nowhere and an unsightly scar was all that remained of the extravagant building.

  “Granny Ross, my mother-in-law, is related to the gamekeeper on the estate there,” Joanne explained, “as well as being a cousin to Mrs. Munro, your housekeeper.”

  “I know. Mrs. Munro keeps me up-to-date with the family goings-on.”

  Does she now? Joanne thought and was not comfortable with the information.

  At the next village, they turned off and parked in the precinct next to the red sandstone ruins of the cathedral. Surrounded by thick walls and copper beeches, horse chestnuts with sticky swollen buds, and oaks as yet bare of leaves, the substantial remains of the cathedral were a striking sight.

  Patricia was looking around, searching. The children, picking up on her anxiety, followed her gaze, puzzled as to what they should be looking for. Joanne made towards the wicket gate set in a lichen-covered archway.

  “There’s Mrs. Munro.” Patricia waved. “She’s waiting for us. Yoo-hoo.”

  Joanne watched in bemusement as her friend took a wicker basket from Mrs. Munro, then stooped to pin small corsages onto the children’s coats.

  “And, ta-ra, this one for my matron of honor.”

  “Matron of honor?” Flabbergasted would be too mild a word to describe Joanne’s face.

  Patricia beamed. “Yes, my wedding. Here and now.” She pointed to the building on the other side of the cathedral precinct, the registry office. “I’m to be married in, let’s see, twenty minutes. Now you know why I wanted you to dress up.”

  “But I didn’t even know you were engaged.”

  “Skipped that bit. Bun in the oven.” Patricia patted her stomach and giggled, from nerves or bravado Joanne couldn’t say. She was desperate to know more, but was aware of Annie avidly hanging on to every word.

  “Why don’t you go with Mrs. Munro to see the cathedral?” Joanne shooed her daughter off. She watched Annie join the housekeeper, who was already hovering over Jean like a broody hen, her nervousness at being here, deceiving her employers, momentarily distracted by the running, jumping children.

  Even though Patricia had insisted on her being at the wedding, Mrs. Munro would do anything to avoid the fury of Patricia’s mother, Mrs. Janet Ord Mackenzie.

  “There will be trouble,” she sighed to herself, never anticipating how great the trouble would turn out to be.

  “I want an explanation, Patricia Ord Mackenzie. Now.” But Joanne couldn’t help smiling. This was so typical of her friend, announcing an intrigue or a plan or an escapade at the very last minute, making it impossible for Joanne to refuse to join in.

  “You’re the only one I could count on,” came the shrugged apology. “After all, the same thing happened to you.”

  Joanne winced at the tactless honesty of the remark.

  “I’ve known Sandy for forever. Well, at least five years.” Patricia lit a cigarette before plowing on. “These things happen. He’s a local. I met him on the farm. A handsome devil, that’s what I first noticed . . . along with many other local lasses no doubt. . . .” Patricia laughed. “Then we started seeing each other . . . you know how it is . . . but it had to be secret because . . .” Patricia hesitated. She couldn’t remember why it had to be secret; she was not ashamed of her romance with a working-class man. “When I became pregnant, Sandy was really pleased. He proposed, I accepted, and here we are.” She threw away her cigarette and searched in her bag for a lipstick.

  “I see.” Joanne didn’t really, but was stuck for something to say. “Do your parents know?” was all she could think to ask.

  “Absolutely not. I’d be packed off to a nunnery or whatever one does in these circumstances. No, best get it over with and present them with a fait accompli. She can rant and cry all she wants, but if it’s a boy, and I’m certain it will be, Mummy will forgive me anything.”

  “I can’t see your mother crying,” Joanne commented, recollecting her own nightmare. Their mothers were both of the same school of steely resolve.

  “No,” Patricia agreed. “Tears would turn to ice as they left he
r eyes.” She looked at Joanne and the pink flush of vulnerability, or was it pregnancy hormones, softened Patricia’s face. “I’m sorry to deceive you. It’s going to be hard, so I need your support. And I want you at my wedding.”

  Joanne leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her friend in reply. Patricia held on tight, a slight sob of relief escaping through all the held-in emotion.

  Over Patricia’s shoulder, Joanne saw a vaguely familiar figure stepping out of a car. In his buttonhole was a red carnation—for a wedding, presumably. His companions, on either side of him, wore white carnations, identifying them as part of the wedding party. They came towards the women, shuffling slightly, as though their shiny suits, hired, Joanne thought, were scratching them. But perhaps they were just embarrassed.

  Joanne stared at the weathered, brown faces; the flattened-down hair that held the indentation from seldom removed caps; and it dawned on her that she did indeed know these men.

  Patricia turned. “Darling.” She rushed forward to the oldest of the three. “You should be inside. It’s unlucky to see the bride before the wedding.” But laughing, she took his hand. “Come and meet my best friend and matron of honor—Joanne Ross.”

  Smirking, his hand held out, he said, “Pleased to meet you at long last. I’ve heard a lot about you.” His hand enveloped hers, squeezing her hand until Joanne almost cried out in pain, all the while staring, daring her to speak out, taking his revenge. She could read it in his eyes: “That’s for humiliating me.” Another quick squeeze and she was sure her wedding ring had broken the skin: “That’s for kicking me.”

  “How do you do,” Joanne gasped, staring straight into the eyes of the skipper of the herring boat.

  “This is ma’ friends.”

  The two crewmen stepped forward. Looking sheepish, they touched their foreheads with a cocked forefinger. Patricia noticed nothing, dizzy with emotion—part elation, part fear, and a mercifully mild bout of the usual morning sickness. The clock chimed ten. The meager group gathered at the foot of the registry office stairway.

  “This is it, then.” Sandy offered his arm to his bride. “At long last.”

  Joanne followed. At the top of the steps he turned to her. “Fancy that eh . . . me marrying into the Ord Mackenzie clan.” Then he winked.

  As he turned to go into the registry office, Joanne had a sudden sickening premonition that this was not going to work out, and that this would happen sooner rather than later.

  FOUR

  Joanne would later recall that weekend in small episodes. Like a film director, she would try to organize the memories, but they refused to fall into chronological sequence—a fragment of farce alternating with a scene of excruciating embarrassment, moments of real pleasure ending in sharp pain, the pain that only families can inflict on one another. And Joanne felt herself clearly, vividly, hovering above, looking down on those scenes; she saw herself, lips tight together, waiting on tenterhooks for the next revelation, the next disaster, the next episode in the drama.

  The friends walked in the woods, primroses and wood aconite and wild garlic carpeting the mossy banks along the swift-flowing burn, the girls with small bags of salt “to shake on rabbits’ tails,” Patricia had explained. It was an old joke, but a good one, and even though Annie saw through it she played along for her sister’s sake.

  The girls went riding, Annie going solo, Wee Jean happy to be led on the fat pony. In the afternoon, gathering driftwood and shells on the beach at Rosemarkie, Joanne and Patricia chatted about anything other than the subject foremost in their minds while the children ran to and fro between the breaking waves and the women, anxious for a small phrase of praise for each shell, each treasure gathered from the tide-line. Across the firth, the ramparts of Fort George loomed grey and sinister, a fitting backdrop. When the day ended, both women—and to a lesser degree Annie—were glad that not one word had been said about Patricia’s wedding, nor of Patricia’s new husband.

  On the Saturday evening, Mrs. Ord Mackenzie insisted on the torture of dinner in the high-ceilinged, long, dim, and echoing dining room of the Georgian mansion. The table setting was formal, with enough linen, dishes, glasses, and silver cutlery to sate the appetite of any burglar. The temperature was that of a seldom-used room. The atmosphere matched.

  Mr. Ord Mackenzie sat at the head of the table, his wife on one side and his daughter on the other. Annie and Wee Jean were down from Patricia, and Joanne sat a safe gap from Janet Ord Mackenzie. The remaining six yards of table was empty. Joanne prayed that the girls would not disgrace her.

  Great Expectations, that’s what it feels like, Joanne thought.

  “More vegetables, Joanne?”

  “Would you pass the mustard, Daddy?”

  “The primroses are everywhere this year. So bonnie.”

  The conventional questions were asked: Joanne’s health and welfare and her parents’ health, even though Mrs. Ord Mackenzie knew that Joanne was excommunicated.

  Patricia and Joanne were just at the point of self-congratulations on an ordeal endured when Wee Jean, in all her innocence, ignited the touch paper.

  “Aunty Patricia, can we go to the shops sometime? I want to get some sweeties with the half-a-crown your friend gave me.”

  “And what friend is that?” asked Mrs. Ord Mackenzie.

  Wee Jean was scared of Mr. Ord Mackenzie. His coat, his knickerbockers, his shambling slow shape, his moustache, and the hair coming out of his ears made her think he was made entirely from tweed. But his wife—her skeletal body, her silent walk, her grey hair so immaculate Jean was sure Mrs. Ord Mackenzie took it off at night—terrified the child. She suspected the woman was a ghost, so all the cajoling, bribery, and warnings to stay silent were forgotten, so mesmerized was the girl at being spoken to directly.

  “The friend Aunty Patricia married.”

  The sharp intake of breath from Joanne and Aunty Patricia’s fork clattering onto a plate started the tears.

  “I don’t mind his name.” She started to cry. “I’m sorry.”

  “Patricia!” Mrs. Ord Mackenzie elongated the name into three syllables, the final “a” roared as loud and as fiercesome as a battle cry at Culloden.

  Wee Jean’s tears turned to sobs. Annie, sitting beside her, took her wee sister’s hand.

  “Excuse us,” Joanne stood, “I must take the children to bed. It’s been a long day.”

  “I’ll help.” Patricia stood, holding on to the dining table to steady herself. “Mother, Daddy, we’ll talk in the drawing room later.” Shoulders squared, she led the miserable troop from the room.

  Her father watched in bewilderment.

  “What was that? Who’s married?”

  It took a while to settle the girls. Joanne read Wee Jean three stories and Patricia read a chapter of Anne of Green Gables to Annie.

  “Isn’t too grown-up for you?” Patricia asked. But no, it was currently Annie’s favorite.

  When they were walking down to the drawing room, Joanne brushed against her friend and was surprised to feel her trembling.

  “I don’t feel up to this, but it has to be faced sometime,” Patricia whispered. “I’m so glad you’re with me.”

  “Let’s pretend we’re being summoned to the headmistress’s room for late homework,” Joanne suggested.

  “Far more serious than that,” Patricia said, “more like being caught with a boy in the rhododendron bushes.”

  They were still smiling as they entered the room.

  “Mummy, Daddy,” Patricia started in a bright kindergarten schoolteacher placating a difficult parent voice, “can I pour you another drink?” She held up the decanter. “No? Well, Joanne and I will have a wee dram.” She poured two healthy slugs then sat on the sofa as outwardly calm as Mary Queen of Scots awaiting her execution.

  “On Thursday morning, I married Alexander Skinner,” Patricia announced.

  “You are getting married?” Her father beamed at her. “Jolly good.”

  “I presum
e you are pregnant,” her mother said.

  “He is a fisherman,” Patricia continued. “From the Black Isle . . .”

  “A fisherman?” her father asked. “I must look out the salmon rods. Been a while since I’ve had a spot of fishing.”

  “Penniless no doubt,” her mother commented.

  “On the contrary, Mother, he has his own boat. . . .”

  That shocked Joanne. Sandy hasn’t told her.

  “You will meet him on Easter Monday,” Patricia told them.

  “Jolly good,” said her father.

  “You always were a stubborn, difficult, and not particularly bright child,” Mrs. Ord Mackenzie said. “But this is completely unacceptable. I will consult our solicitor. I will not have a common fisherman marrying into my family.”

  “Too late for that now,” Patricia told her.

  Mrs. Ord Mackenzie stood. The conversation was over. As she passed by without saying goodnight, Joanne could have sworn she felt an icy draft in the woman’s wake. Don’t be silly, she told herself, you’ve been reading too many faerie tales to the children. But she felt herself shiver nonetheless.

  “Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Joanne smiled at Patricia.

  “Just wait. Mother will make my life miserable one way or another,” came the reply.

  “Well, well, will you look at this?” Fraser flapped a copy of the Gazette at his mother, but didn’t bother to rise from his chair. “See,” he said, “the boat that was burnt to nothing, The Good Shepphard, it belongs to Miss Stuck-Up’s fancy man.”

  “Let me have that.” Mrs. Munro grabbed the newspaper out of her son’s hands and stared at the front page.

  “I was reading that.” Fraser stared in surprise at his mother, but she was out the kitchen door, with the newspaper, before he could react.

  She squeezed past packing boxes lining the hallway. She was out of the farmhouse and into the kitchen of Achnafern Grange, sitting at the kitchen table, one ear cocked for the sound of footsteps, reading the front page of the Gazette, leaving Fraser to wonder what on earth was going on.